During the time of transatlantic tensions in the last year or more, no area has contributed more to the public appearance of disagreement than the Middle East, with its arc of instability and crises stretching from Israel and the West Bank to Iraq and Iran and connecting to the problems of the Caucasus and Central Asia. With their respective missions dedicated to the improvement of transatlantic relations and the promotion of constructive transatlantic dialogue, the Atlantic Council of the United States and the German Marshall Fund of the United States decided that it would be timely to take an initiative...

The current transatlantic relationship as it concerns the Middle East² can only be understood if set in a broader context. At least three dimensions of this context are important – the historical evolution of transatlantic relations concerning the region, the broader aspects of transatlantic relations as they have developed under the new U.S. administration since January 2001, and the special circumstances that have affected transatlantic discussions since the attacks of September 11,2001. These will be discussed in order in the following paragraphs.

The affairs of the Middle East have been uniquely contentious between the principal European countries and the United...

The natural tendency of governments is to approach the problems of the region by focusing on the most immediate and important issues at any time. Thus, not surprisingly the principal issues on European minds at present are the Israeli-Palestinian problem, Iraq and Iran. This assessment of European attitudes will begin by addressing each of these issues in turn. But all these questions are seen in Europe, as in the United States, against a broader background of social, economic and political change in the region and those broader issues, although of less immediate policy salience, nonetheless color European attitudes on the...

The point of departure for any recommendations on the complex of issues addressed in this report is the recognition of several important facts:

Both the United States and the countries of Western Europe have extensive and legitimate interests in the Middle East. While those interests overlap in many respects, they are not identical and these differences are likely to engender differences of policy approach on some key questions. For example, European countries have a more immediate concern for instability in the region that could prompt more migration, several have a greater dependency on Middle East oil, and many have historic...