Disquiet on the western front: Sleeper cells, transatlantic rift and the war in Iraq

Abstract

European allies of the United States invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty in the wake of the attacks of 9/11. Not only did they regard the strikes as attacks upon themselves, but they supported the US invasion of Afghanistan despite the initial relegation of European NATO allies to a secondary role. The US-led attack on Al-Qaida and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan would not encounter allied chain of command disagreements as experienced during the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict. But the US insistence upon autonomy and control over its forces in leading the invasion foretold a growing US unilateralism which, within a few months, would begin to jeopardize a major cornerstone of the US war against terrorism, namely the imperative of building a global alliance against Al-Qaida and its confederates.