The American administration naturally presented the war on ter-
rorism – and Operation Iraqi Freedom in particular – as one that rose
above traditional political divisions. Among Western democracies,
however, the US policy appeared much more legitimate to govern-
ments of the right. In Europe, notably, partisan differences were
manifest.^27 At the end of 2003, among the fifteen countries that were
then members of the European Union, six had agreed to participate
in the coalition created by Washington and nine had refused. Of the
six governments that dispatched troops to Iraq, five were led by
parties of the center-right (Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal,
and Spain) and only one belonged to the center-left (United Kingdom).
Among the nine opposed to the coalition, five were associated with
the center-left (Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, and Sweden), and
four with the center-right (Austria, France, Ireland, and Luxembourg).
Left–right ideology did not predict policy orientations perfectly, but it
clearly influenced the decisions of European governments with regard
to the war in Iraq. The steadfast support of Great Britain and its New
Labour government for the American strategy constituted a significant
anomaly but, at the same time, one should acknowledge that Tony
Blair’s policy gave rise to sharp internal opposition, coming mainly
from his own party and from groups identified with the left.^28
In the domestic arena, conservatives have called for a hardening of
internal security measures, as well as for substantial increases in the
human, financial, and technical resources devoted to the fight against
terrorism. New laws and regulations were adopted to give the police
and the courts more latitude in the pursuit of terrorists.^29 Policies
introduced in the aftermath of 9/11 granted exceptional powers of
arrest to police officers, authorized the indefinite detention of for-
eigners, and reinforced immigration controls, particularly with regard
to Middle Eastern populations. The anti-terrorist struggle also
addressed fund-raising, money-laundering, weapon procurement, and
(^27) Brian C. Rathbun,Partisan Interventions: European Party Politics and Peace
Enforcement in the Balkans, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2004, p. 213. See
also Ju ̈rgen Schuster and Herbert Maier, “The Rift: Explaining Europe’s
Divergent Iraq Policies in the Run-Up of the American-Led War on Iraq,”
Foreign Policy Analysis, vol. 2, no. 3, July 2006, 223–44.
(^28) Rathbun,Partisan Interventions, p. 216.
(^29) Doron Zimmermann and Andreas Wenger (eds.),How States Fight Terrorism:
Policy Dynamics in the West, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 2007.
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