Colin Powell, then minister of state, known as one day of the Organization of the Treaty of the North Atlantic that it was “largest and most profitable of alliances of the history”. This assertion is difficult to contradict; indeed, NATO stated and carried out the with as well success as it did not even have to fight.

But this great alliance is currently in prey so that Jose Aznar, the ex-first minister of Spain, probably calls “the major crisis and most serious of all its history”. It reigns there according to him a “climate of permanent crisis” created by the perception of the loss “of the raison d'être [in French in the text] of the organization, of the absence of a mission”.

by Daniel Pipes - with the pleasant authorization of the author

New York Sun

French amendment: Alain Jean-Mairet

The origins of this crisis are easily explainable. Since its foundation, in 1949, and until the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, NATO was the main means of containing the Soviet expansionism. After its victory against the Soviet threat, its mission changed. In the years 1990, NATO became an instrument allowing to send troops charged to support the security in areas such as Bosnia and . And now, in after September 11th?

A study short, brilliant and concretely realizable, entitled : Year Alliance (NATO - an alliance for freedom) and published by the think-tank of Aznar, para Social there , teaches us that resistance to the Soviet Union was not the principle founder of the organization. NATO had in fact a more positive objective, namely “to back up freedom, the heritage and the common age of the populations [of the Member States], founded on the principles of the democracy, individual freedoms and the Rule of law”.

As a proof that NATO always had as a mandate to defend the democracy against good more than simple Communism, one can advance the fact that it gave up the strategic value of the territory and of the Spanish military forces as a long time as the country remained under the cut of the fascistic government of Francisco Franco. It is only after its death, in 1975, and after the democratization of its government, that Spain was invited to join alliance, in 1981.

A sign pointing towards what should be the new guideline of NATO appeared the shortly after on September 11th, when NATO, for the very first time, called upon the item V of its Treaty, expect that an armed attack against one of its members will be regarded as an attack against all the signatory parties. Thus, after one decade of “war as a social work”, NATO abruptly took conscience of the threat of the Radical Islam.

Aznar and the team of the based themselves on this crucial decision to state that “islamist terrorism is a new shared threat of worldwide span, making weigh a risk on the existence even members of NATO”. Pointing out the totalitarian ideologies of the years 1930, they prevent rightly that “we must very take [them] ambitions [islamist] with the serious one, it does not matter with which point they can appear ridiculous or delirious”. Animated of a real inspiration, they also stress that terrorism “is only the strictly warlike party of an offensive much broader impetus against the liberal and democratic world”.

The mission of NATO must thus consist in “fighting the Islamic and the proliferation of the weapons of massive destruction primarily, but not only, among the Islamic groups and governments”. That implies “to place the war against the Islamic in the center of the strategy of Alliance” and to make victory against the Islamic “the key mission” of the organization for many years.

Study : Year Alliance advances a second central recommendation: that to invite the countries which are at the same time democratic, stable and eager to contribute to the war against the Islamic , to adhere fully to NATO. The document stresses the accession of Israel, which it forwards like “an extremely important pitch”, and it adopts from the start the accession with whole share of Japan and Australia. Perhaps I would propose to add to this list Taiwan, South Korea and Chile. To encourage other States in difficulty, the study suggests offering a statute of associated member to countries such as Colombia and India. I think for my part that Mexico and Sri Lanka could join them.

A topic that the is satisfied to touch on without discussing it explicitly is the possibility that NATO replaces the United Nations in its role of central worldwide part. As the NAKED one are inserted, passing from a level already very low to depths increasingly muddier, it becomes increasingly manifest that to behave in an adult way, an international organization should accept for members only democratic States. Of course, it would be possible to create an entirely new organization, but it would be easier, more economic and more rapid to build on the basis of existing structure, especially if the aforementioned proved its value. NATO is here a candidate very designated, with stronger reason after the conceptual overhaul suggested by the .

What Jose Aznar and her team forward thus is the best plan ever suggested to face the Radical Islam. Will the politicians be able to take the ball with the flight?