ABSTRACT
The West European countries vary widely in terms of relative prosperity, resource endowment and the presence of domestic groups with salient foreign policy concerns in the Middle East. Ironically, in the Middle East, long a center of European rivalries, the collective interests, fears, sentiments and principles of both the states and their Community have created at least the impression of a unified policy. Paradoxically, the war, with its exaggerated casualty figures, may well have narrowed differences between America and Western Europe on the next steps to pursue in the peace process in the Middle East. European ground and sea forces could share defense burdens with the US, thereby stressing the political and economic stake of the entire Western alliance in the Middle East. The content of that policy derives from the fact that West European economic wellbeing is still highly dependent on imported petroleum, almost a decade after the first oil “shock”.
