It has become a journalistic cliche to speculate how U.S. policy in the Middle East is viewed by the "Arab street," a reference to public opinion in that part of the world. Last weekend's demonstrations in Europe against a war in Iraq are a reminder for President Bush that the "Europe street" opposes what it sees as an American rush to war.
Mr. Bush and his advisers might be tempted to dismiss the demonstrations in Britain, Germany and Italy as Euro-wimpery or a manifestation of the same spinelessness that administration officials impute to French and German diplomats who have tried to slow the bandwagon on its way to Baghdad.
For good measure, the Europeans who took to the streets can be accused of anti-Americanism. According to this view, their opposition to an attack on Iraq is of a piece with their disdain for McDonald's, American pop culture and an American president who often invokes the Almighty -- and in a Texas accent!
There is some truth in the argument that Europeans were willing to turn a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's stone-walling of international resolutions passed after the Gulf war. President Bush and his aides are correct when they argue that the common ground between the United States and its European critics -- the insistence that Saddam Hussein must disarm -- can be traced to Mr. Bush's willingness to threaten military action.
But it would be a cheap shot to write off last weekend's demonstrations -- or the larger European unease about war -- as knee-jerk pacifism. It isn't just Western Europeans who took to the streets on Saturday; there also were anti-war demonstrations in Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, Australia and New York.
Indeed, many Americans are unconvinced that war is the only or the best way to hold Iraq to account for its history of developing and concealing weapons of mass destruction. They know that even the most "surgical" strike on Iraq would cost innocent lives and shake up the political order in a volatile region.
That said, Europeans have particular apprehensions about a war on Iraq. For example, nations with significant Muslim minorities worry about the effect on their own societies of a war that inevitably would have religious overtones. Those concerns, whether expressed on the street or in the corridors of the United Nations, cannot be ignored.
Even as Secretary of State Colin Powell was warning the United Nations not to allow Saddam endlessly to prolong the inspection process, U.S. diplomats were lowering their expectations about adoption of a tough new Security Council resolution.
No doubt some of those who took to the streets in Europe on Saturday would oppose military action even if inspectors uncovered a "smoking gun" proving that Iraq was not just uncooperative but also deceitful and dangerous. But the dominant theme of the protests seemed to be not "peace at any price" but "give peace a chance." It's advice the United States should heed.
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