They will work as long as we are integrated into the strategy with the US. The problem might be the "unilateral" acting of your country in the recent years. The trans-atlantic tragedy started when President Bush bailed out of a few -to Europeans quite important- projects like the Kyoto protocol. This found its continuation in the pre-Iraq-war phase. The US acted alone and were totally amazed that they were left alone by western Europe then. It is no question that Chirac and Schroeder were a pain in the a**, but the policy of your administration concerning its foreign relations with western Europe were not better. In Germany we have a bonmot that says that you will recieve the echo of what you are shouting into the forrest. That exactly happend here. Most Europeans i.e. understood because of the refuse of President Bush to sign the Kyoto protocol that the US continue to put their own economic well being above world security (do you recognize the same words you wrote in your contribution above?). You Americans did not join into the security projects that were important to us since you have not been convinced of them. Why should we have been joining into security projects of you we were not convinced about for good reasons (really nobody in Europe believed into a danger because of the very few remaining WMDs of Saddam - this includes my own person)???
It was politically stupid to underestimate the self interests of Europe that careless. I think America paid a bitter price for it.
Acting intelligent means making things better than in the past. Our politicians have to talk with each other and they have to find a route of march in the Iran question that can be followed by all participants over the next few years. This should also include the time after President Bush. Therefore you Americans first have to discover what you really want and if there is a consensus possible between your 2 big parties. I am quite sure that this can not be a full scale war. It is anyway better to avoid another millitary conflict that is not being ended in a positive way because of a uncertain outcome of elections in America. As I already said your Iraq engagement could end in a total debacle if a democratic President decides to "pull out" after a possible political change in Washington. We do not need this disastrous political situation in another conflict with Iran.
If you Americans have a strategy that has the chance to remain stable over the next 5 or 6 years you should talk to your European partners. To me the only possibility to put pressure on Iran will be sanctions. If the US and Europe combine their efforts here we can isolate them completely since it is possible to force Russia and China into our positions then. We Europeans have to pay a high economic price in this case but I am sure that we will do that if we see a chance to solve this nuclear crisis.
But -as I already said- first of this you Americans have to do your own homework before you ask us to give up all of our interests in that area.
Your argument is ridiculous because the sanctions ordered by the UN were not supposed to be unilateral. They werea approved by France and the UN. That is the point, Europe lied, cheated and actually sided with the enemy that they were supposed to be sanctioning. There were NO UNILATERAL sanctions. Europe is like a philandering lover who doesn't have the guts to leave his rich wife, so he just goes on cheating and being irresponsible. The real problem is Europe's moral relativity, it makes it impossible to trust them, because they have no honor. But, Iran's nukes will be able to reach Europe, not the US, and we just might not come to the rescue this time.
We did heip with Europe's security, remember Bosnia? Serbia? That wasn't in the US interest to go in there. Europe asked us to, and we responded. Why didn't you handle it yourselves?
As far as the Kyoto treaty is concerned, it was designed to hurt the US economy. It was pointless and even those countries that did sign it, made no attempt to honor it. The US actually made greater strides in the reduction of CO2 than Canada. Without China and India being included, any worldwide agreement is useless. That's the reason that even the wacko environmentalists have abandon Kyoto in favor of the Earth Charter. But, I don't believe in the whole hullaballoo over global warming, anyway. It's just leftist
scare tactics to push for world socialism. It's not even good science, it's feminized science, just another postmodern metanarrative with a catastrophic ending that the socialists must save us from.
The best answer to our problems is to drill more oil, in both Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, and the California coast, come up with other types of alternative fuels (not bio)and reduce the price of oil on the world market, at least for the US. Then we can allow the Muslims to behead each other and blow themselves to kingdom come, as long as the leave Israel alone.