Opinion Arms across the ocean

But of course the deflection of American attention always prompts a measure of unease,as was evident at a meeting of the Council for the United States and Italy. The question arises: Can some new galvanising transatlantic goal or institution be found?

I doubt it. The lesson of Venice is that history moves on. Great decisions affecting far-flung lands were once taken where the idle now gaze at roseate facades and wander over stones smoothed by centuries. After the doges came the dolce vita. After statecraft came style,Flaubert’s “discharge from a deeper wound.”

Transatlantic relations are OK. They do not transfix. They function. In so far as the US is interested in Europe it is interested in what can be done together in the world.

America is now looking to the emergent powers,to its winding-down wars and to the places that affect national security. Europe is in an awkward phase,its integration on hold. The European bicycle was always unsustainable without forward motion. There is none.

Helmut Kohl,the former German chancellor,said something startling last month. Speaking at the American Academy in Berlin,he declared: “Germany’s future is with its neighbors,our partners in the EU. We will stand side by side with the Greek people. It is the most important thing.”

It was startling because you don’t hear Chancellor Angela Merkel saying much about Germany’s European leadership. She has her finger to the wind. A clear majority of Germans would much rather Greeks got a comeuppance for their profligacy than help. Europe,once its anchor,has become Germany’s albatross. Merkel bears it with a grimace.

Combine German navel-gazing with an American president shaped not by Europe’s drama but by the Pacific’s allure and you find yourself in a transatlantic relationship that has lost its emotional core.

Still there is work to be done. Perhaps Europe can help America make the right call in Afghanistan and America can repay the favor in North Africa.

The drawdown in US troops in Afghanistan is about to begin. The question is: In what numbers? A cautious process maintaining maximum combat capability is being advocated by the outgoing secretary of defence,Robert Gates,as a “no-brainer.” Europeans are on the go-faster side of this debate. They are right. Osama bin Laden is dead,a grinding 10-year-old war is unwinnable,and there may be no more than 100 al-Qaeda operatives left in Afghanistan. It’s time to switch from counter-insurgency to a counter-terrorism approach that reflects finite resources and the need to build an exit strategy around talks with the Taliban.

The US in turn can help Europe ensure that decent societies emerge around the Mediterranean basin. The European strategic interest in the Arab Spring is overwhelming. It is political despotism and economic failure across North Africa that has fed instability,extremism and an immigrant tide northward. Yet Europe’s response has been hesitant.

There are three priorities. End the war in Libya in short order with the departure of Muammar Gaddafi. Ensure democratic change equals opportunity for young societies: Europe needs to help create a regional investment bank similar to the one that helped fulfill the promise of the last spring — of 1989. And remember the Arab Spring’s bumper sticker,“It’s Egypt,stupid.” Egypt is the pivot.

I’d argue that Egypt is now more important to America than Afghanistan. Its success in a democratic transition would be the best antidote to the frustrations in the Arab world that led to 9/11. Egypt’s successful emergence from despotism is as delicate and critical as German unification within the West was two decades ago.

The Arab Spring reminds us of what does still bind the US and Europe: values of human dignity and freedom. The transatlantic relationship is an empty vessel if not used when the yearning of less fortunate peoples touches on what binds us most intimately.