By STEVEN ERLANGER MARRAKESH

An initial euphoria after the end of
the Bush era gives way to a trans-
Atlantic ‘spiral of dissatisfaction’ . . .


Morocco THE ELECTION OF Barack Obama as president of the United States seemed to most Europeans to be unadulterated good news, marking an end to the perceived unilateralism and indifference to allied views of former President George W. Bush.

But nine months into Mr. Obama’s presidency, trans- Atlantic relations are again clouded by doubts. Europe and the United States remain at least partly out of sync on Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran and climate change.

Many Europeans argue that Mr. Obama has not broken clearly enough with Bush administration policies that they dislike, while some Americans argue that the Europeans are too passive, watching

Mr. Obama struggle with difficult issues, like Afghanistan and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, without providing much substantive help. Mr. Obama remains popular with the European public, but a senior European official said that he was worried about an underlying disaffection. “It’s dangerous, because we must not get into a spiral of dissatisfaction on both sides,” he said. These generalizations lack real substance, he said, but the criticism runs that “the U.S. thinks that Europeans don’t want to do anything to help and the Europeans feel that the U.S. is naive and not delivering enough.”

Another senior European official said that for “all the talk of multilateralism” and the European contribution of aid and NATO troops to the fight against the Taliban, which has brought more than 500 European deaths, Afghanistan remained an American show. “Europeans are sitting around waiting for Washington to decide what the Afghanistan policy is going to be,” he said.


The United States and Europe still have tensions over issues like Afghanistan and Iran. President Obama joined NATO leaders on the French-German border in April. / TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Frustration Is Felt
On Both Sides of Atlantic


On Iran, Europeans, and especially the French, are concerned that Mr. Obama could sacrifice the principle of preventing Tehran from enriching uranium-as demanded by the United Nations Security Council-to get what seems like an agreement for broad talks with Iran on regional and bilateral issues.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France went so far as to chide Mr. Obama in public at the United Nations General Assembly in September, saying: “I support America’s outstretched hand. But what has the international community gained from these offers of dialogue? Nothing but more enriched uranium and centrifuges.”

A lot of the problem is the fault of the Europeans themselves, said Hubert Vedrine, a former French foreign minister. “Europe for Obama is not a priority, not a problem and not a solution for his problems,” he said in an interview here. “Obama keeps a distance and has a kind of hauteur” with European leaders, Mr. Vedrine said. “But that’s not a sufficient reason for Europeans to act like spectators” as Mr. Obama tries to cope with his challenges. “I think it’s necessary to help him,” he said.

European nations have been slow to help Mr. Obama with the major points on his agenda. They have so far agreed to take only a handful of detainees from the Guantanamo detention center, which Mr. Obama vowed to close within a year. And European countries that belong to NATO have also been slow to provide Mr. Obama much extra help in Afghanistan, in part because many Europeans strongly oppose the war and Washington has not yet agreed upon a compelling new strategy to succeed in Afghanistan.

Jean-David Levitte, Mr. Sarkozy’s diplomatic counselor and former ambassador to the United States, said that Europe nonetheless remained Washington’s best ally. Mr. Obama’s election was enthralling to Europeans, he said, “transforming the image of the United States in just several months.” He said, “We all feel a stake in the U.S.”

Is Europe ready to respond? “Of course it is,” he said, citing more than 35,000 European troops now in Afghanistan. “If not the Europeans, who would there be? No one else.” In a recent report, the European Council on Foreign Relations, an independent research group, urged European Union governments to shake off illusions about the trans- Atlantic relationship if they wanted to avoid global irrelevance.

The report, written by the council’s Nick Witney and Jeremy Shapiro of the Brookings Institution after interviews in all 27 members of the bloc, argues that Europeans retain key and damaging “illusions” they acquired over “decades of American hegemony,” which produces “an unhealthy mix of complacency and excessive deference” to a United States that has a “rapidly decreasing interest” in a Europe that cannot pull its own weight.

The United States “needs strong partners in a world it no longer dominates,” the authors say, and while it would prefer a more united European Union , Washington no longer expects to see it.

While Mr. Obama is personally sympathetic and even “European” in his policy choices, the report argues, “Europeans miss the implications of the self-avowed pragmatism” of his administration, which wants “to work with whoever will most effectively help it achieve the outcomes it desires.”


President Sarkozy of France criticized President Obama’s policy on Iran in a speech at the United Nations in September. / DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES