February 15, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 13, 1423

BRUSSELS: NATO Secretary-General George Robertson likes to joke that “NATO in disarray” is a story newspaper editors reach for whenever there’s a quiet news day.

But this time, discord over Iraq is putting the very future of the 19-nation Western defence alliance in doubt.

By holding up NATO contingency planning to protect Turkey in case of a war with Iraq, France, Germany and Belgium have defied US leadership and strengthened those hawks in Washington who think the 54-year-old alliance has outlived its usefulness.

A creeping crisis over the Cold War defence pact’s relevance in the 21st century, born when NATO was sidelined from the US-led war in Afghanistan, has exploded into a high-stakes transatlantic battle in which both sides stand to lose.

“Institutions hardly ever die, but what is dead is the idea that NATO is the central place where big security issues are debated and decided on,” said John Chipman, director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“NATO is in danger of becoming a quaint Brussels-based institution populated by military accountants who are rarely called upon.”

The US would look elsewhere to build ad hoc military coalitions if it could not count on NATO, Chipman said.

Voices in Congress are already calling for US funding of NATO to be reduced.

BLAME GAME: Washington and the anti-war European allies blame each other for this state of affairs, less than three months after the alliance proclaimed its rebirth at a Prague summit and agreed to admit another seven east European members.

Chipman said damage to NATO could be limited if the dispute over planning defensive measures for Turkey were resolved within a couple of days after chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix reports to the Security Council on Friday.

But even if it is resolved in the next few days, experts and NATO officials say the crisis will leave deep scars.

“The long-term problem is that NATO itself is becoming increasingly politically unmanageable, militarily ineffective and strategically in question,” said Sean Kay, associate professor of politics at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Some Europeans say the Bush administration precipitated the clash by disregarding diplomacy and UN weapons inspections in its eagerness to attack Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

They trace the crisis back to their exclusion from the military campaign in Afghanistan, despite NATO having invoked its mutual defence clause for the first time in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks.—Reuters