Abstract
At first glance, the deep divisions in Europe over the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq hardly represent a successfully chapter in the evolution of Common Foreign Security Policy (CFSP) and the EU’s long-term effort at becoming a coherent, influential international actor. The run up to the Iraq war split open fissures amongst EU member states rarely displayed in such naked clarity: ‘new’ versus ‘old’, ‘Atlanticist’ versus ‘Europeanist’, and within the big state ‘triumvirate’ of Britain, France, and Germany. And when a majority of member states publicly broke ranks with a tenuously reached common position, sceptics argued that the EU’s consultative and consensus-based process of foreign policy-making was either fictitious or irrevocably broken. According to David Calleo, ‘internal divergences over Iraq mocked the geopolitical vision of European unity’ (2004: 32). But what is striking about this case is not the failure of EU members to reach a common policy on Iraq. Indeed, as John Peterson noted soon after the war began, ‘Iraq had been a bitterly divisive issue in both transatlantic and inter-European relations for at least ten years’ (2004a: 11).2
1 For comments on earlier versions I thank the conference participants and especially Daniel Thomas, Anand Menon, and Simon Duke.
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© 2011 Jeffrey Lewis
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Lewis, J. (2011). EU Policy on the Iraq War and its Aftermath: The Breakdown and Revival of Consensus-based Decision-making. In: Thomas, D.C. (eds) Making EU Foreign Policy. Palgrave Studies in International Relations Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307360_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307360_5
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