SWITZERLAND

SWITZERLAND
Tages-Anzeiger, Zurich, Nov. 28: Victory makes you hungry. Because the campaign against the Taliban was a piece of cake, U.S. President Bush already has his next target in sight -- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The accusation is old: Saddam produces weapons of mass destruction. What's new is that this is being classed as a terrorist act. With this definition the United States is trying to create a justification for war -- and in fact has already done that. As expected, Iraq rejected American demands for new U.N. arms inspections.
There are more than enough grounds for longing for an end to Saddam. But starting a war at this time would be a fatal error. The Taliban are still not defeated and Osama bin Laden not captured. Hundreds of Marines are engaged in a tricky mission in Kandahar. Opening a second front would be reckless.
No proof: Second, a war against Iraq might well be the death blow for the anti-terror coalition. The anti-American voices in the Arab world would not allow Middle Eastern leaders to support a war against Saddam. The people do not see the Iraqi dictator as a terrorist, especially as Washington has no proof that he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Third, the military conditions do not exist for a successful war against Iraq. Unlike in Afghanistan, the Americans cannot rely on allied fighters in Mesopotamia. These are necessary to bring down Saddam.
Finally, there is no political strength for a new order in Baghdad. There are only a few exiled, dissident Iraqi splinter groups. The concept that the disunified Iraqi exiles could be got round the same table is an illusion.
BRITAIN
Daily Telegraph, London, Nov. 27: After seven weeks the war in Afghanistan has entered a new phase, with the Americans deploying marines near Kandahar and delegates from different ethnic groups gathering in Bonn today to discuss a broad-based successor to the Taliban regime. These two developments underline the disparity between the military campaign, which has advanced swiftly, and political reconstruction, which appears more and more convoluted, partly because of success on the battlefield.
The prime coalition goals remain the capture or death of bin Laden and the final crushing of the Taliban. Beyond that, there is an allied interest in creating a polity hostile to the re-emergence of terrorism. But it will not be as democratic and cocooned from outside influence as the likes of Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, would have us believe.
Terrorism centers: Washington and its allies should not become bogged down in a search for the impossible in Afghanistan. There are other centers of terrorism in the world urgently requiring their attention.
ITALY
Il Messaggero, Rome, Nov. 21: The decision to once again declare a price on Osama bin Laden's head, a bounty as high as $25 million for whomever takes him dead or alive, has appeared to many Europeans to be the sign of a typically American mentality, an attempt to force Texan customs on an entirely different world.
Even Tony Blair turned up his nose when Bush used the expression "dead or alive," explaining that the "prince of terror" should receive a trial similar to that of Milosevic.
But, given the traditions and reality of Afghanistan, the American approach seems more realistic, even if it is a realism as harsh as the conditions in which the Afghan people live.
The bounty offer is not aimed toward individual Afghans but toward the heads of the tribes and groups that returned to power in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime.
Hefty compensation: The goal is that of effectively enlisting these armed factions, even as they carry on a bloody rivalry, and offering a hefty compensation to those that may get their hands on the body of the man that hit the heart of America.
Among Europeans the doubt remains: is it really to the American's advantage to allow a billion-plus Muslims to see photographs similar to those that showed Che Guevarra's body laid out in a little morgue in Bolivia? Those images of a man martyred in the name of revolution became an explosive icon.