Large-scale terrorism disturbs, as it is meant to. If it was a matter of a single operational apparatus, an organised ‘Green neo-fascism’, with a single war aim, the problem would already have been dealt with. But I think we can say already that 11 September 2001 was originally an American/Saudi affair which, because of unexpected responses, has ended up occupying the psychological space left vacant with the disappearance of the Soviet universe. A new World War? Maybe. The American debate about the relevance of the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ has indeed revealed dramatic confusion. In reality, the issue raised by this diffuse form of terrorism, which has left its mark on many other societies before our own, is one of otherness as a strategic factor, as a vector of violence. Those who cannot, or can no longer find a place in society end by claiming, demanding one. Those who would like to impose their way, but are unable to do so by conventional warfare, look to other methods. And our planetary village harbours a good many drop-outs from the march of progress, from a sense of solidarity and of dignity. Moreover, the rebels against the mould into which the new ‘liberal democratic colonialism’ would like to form them, have become increasingly united. We are aware of the links between a fundamentalist Islam that is searching for more modern outlets and the community of rootless individuals, haphazardly grouped by a web which offers, in addition to political leitmotifs and guerrilla tactics, the guarantee of a reward in the hereafter. Against attacks of blind savagery in the Western world, neither conventional nor special forces warfare is indicated, but a political double-header: on the one hand, an internal clean-up, economic, social and religious, to make more room for the Other; on the other, flawless external judicial cooperation to bring to heel those who refuse integration into their country of adoption. In 2005 terrorists no longer cross frontiers, and the training camps are ‘virtual’; we now have to protect our society, and not our frontiers. The citizen’s safety demands hors piste solutions⁽¹⁾ : a coordinated effort by special forces, police and judges, the commitment of social workers and the revival of a sense of belonging, of cohesion; too bad for the utopians of the ‘it’s all our fault’ school, and for those whose dreams are of post-national societies. We have to go back to stoic endurance, accepting that our society is affected by the dreadful but ultimately bearable epidemic represented by this type of ‘inspirational’ terrorism, which is less destructive, after all, than tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes. Too bad also for the Cassandras who make a delicious meal of hyperterrorism and its alleged ramifications.

Iran

The Iranian issue, strategic flavour of the month last summer, has become bogged down in disavowal and imprecations. We cannot see our way clear. But, like ancient Persia, modern fundamentalist and radical Iran is well and truly confronted by an encirclement which it cannot allow to become entrenched without reacting. Threatening coalitions are seen everywhere: to the East in Afghanistan, to the West in Iraq, an American base in Kuwait, forces on stand-by in Israel, and so on. And with the market price of a barrel of oil at an historically high level, the world’s second largest producer is bound to protect its assets. In such a climate, what country would not wish to protect itself from untimely liberation by the ‘forces for change’ encouraged by the West, as in Georgia, Ukraine or Moldova? Iranian sanctuarisation is the product of incontrovertible strategic preoccupations. The nuclear issue remains. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its avatars, nuclear proliferation seen as a ‘threat to peace and international security’ are the product of 30 years of a mongrelised Wilsonian view by undeclared imperialists. Only three countries have established illegal nuclear arsenals, for reasons that are strategically explainable and implicitly recognised as such. And, current received wisdom notwithstanding, nuclear proliferation has receded, even if a few patent blackmailers still exist, with their quest to upgrade as best they can their clandestine nuclear assets. Apart from the doctrine of nuclear weapons states in the West, there are other positions: those of China, whose arsenal is minimal, and Japan, whose pre-nuclear posture is breaking new ground; two cost/benefit relationships which must have been studied by the Iranian authorities, as by many others. Iran with its millenary existence and culture is, with Russia and Turkey, one of the tutelary powers of a Caucasian and central Asian region in strategic imbalance. Iran is an Other, certainly, but one with its own strategic equations and geopolitical inertia. In trying to reconfigure the world of the twenty-first century, let us not create a pointless dead end. Change fundamentalist regimes? Why not, but do so while respecting their intrinsic stability. And too bad for an outward show of a unified Western posture.

Europe’s frontier

Definition of the limits of Europe has been obscured for too long by the debate between ‘widening’ and ‘deepening’ of the European Union. It weighed heavily on the European constitutional treaty, signed by 25 heads of state and rejected by a few million French and Dutch. The question of frontiers, and beyond, of the Others has been a recurring obsession of Europeans. Is my neighbour a threat to me? By reintegrating those Others who seemed comfortably similar, Europe has in fact created a family circle of 25 states. But with Ankara, things are not quite so simple: common roots are no longer perceptible, and that is the point where the permeability of European society stops, since the Copenhagen and Maastricht criteria are inflexible. As no country wants to be ‘east of the West’, Romania no more than Turkey, Georgia or Azerbaijan, what can be done? In practice, the incorporation of Turkey offers no identifiable strategic advantage to the Union, but presents serious problems of neighbourliness. That is, of course, insufficient reason for rejecting it beyond the fringe of the Union, but logically, if you offer EU membership to Turkey, you are opening the door to Ukraine and to Moldova. And then, how do you refuse Georgia and its Caucasian neighbours? How do you come to terms with a Russia that is then surrounded by states of the Union, other than by some differentiated form of integration? And then how do you deal with the inevitable frustration of the EU’s neighbours in the Maghreb? A Union which has accepted Turkey in its ranks must obviously give similar consideration to ‘Other’ neighbours. To stick to the present 25 states, plus the western Balkan countries as and when that becomes feasible, means the sort of Union which is accessible, and closer to the conception of Europe’s founding fathers. Within a decade, this reasonable formula could permit the creation of a pole of stability in continental Europe, able to sponsor other subregional groupings on the fringes of the Continent, established variously around the Maghreb, Turkey and the southern Caucasus, out towards Central Asia. The issue of European frontiers is not a practical one, linked to the free-market economy or globalisation, but one of neighbourliness, a geopolitical issue. You cannot dodge historical, geographical and cultural issues on the European continent. We should discuss the frontiers of Europe and choose, calmly, the formula which suits the peoples of Europe, and above all those of continental Europe.♦