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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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It seems that the United States is willing to attack Iraq at the end of this year, somewhere between the NATO summit in Prague (November 21-22) and Christmas. At least that has been reported to have been said by an American general to his Israel counterparts during an informal meeting in the Middle East. Political logic says that this war has to be finished in the spring 2003 at the latest. Later that year will be too late for such adventure because of the beginning of the race for White House. So are the days of Saddam numbered? Is everyone happy with this development? No, and the strongest voices we hear these days don't come from Moscow but from Paris and London. Europeans don't want an imminent war, they want to give a last chance to Saddam to comply and only if he fails to proceed with further UN-sponsored diplomatic and military initiatives.

There are two kinds of arguments that Europeans use when they try to oppose the eventual US military strikes. The first is reflected in the official position that any military action has to be preceded by some diplomatic activity and to be sanctioned by the UN Security Council. The second (never expressed in public) deals more with the economic and psychological than diplomatic side of the problem. Here is the fear that a new war near the continent could jeopardize the European economy, trade and tourism. Here is also the fear that a new victory for Washington will mean an undisputed reign over the world for the next decades.

In the main European capitals know well that Washington has only 3 months to prepare for strikes or it loses the best opportunity. So any delay sending the issue at the UN Security Council will be only an attempt to prevent the strikes, not to legitimize them.

Europeans have their particular reasoning when it comes to wars in their neighborhood. For the Americans it s difficult to understand, but for the Europeans it was very painful every time they asked for American military help to solve the problems in the Balkans for example. But do Europeans really mean it when today they say No to any unilateral American military initiative in the Middle East?

They simply follow their old tradition of saying one thing to the public (which now is opposed to such military actions) and at the same time of continuing the dialogue with Washington on the modalities of the strikes. There are some issues that make this coming war looks unlike the wars in the Balkans, which were won only with aircrafts.

At stake here is the political system in Baghdad so victory can't be assured without the total occupation of the country. In this war Washington will need not only several fleets but also strong ground bases and also a sky-bridge to and from the battle field for logistical support of the hundreds of thousands soldiers. It will be very difficult to base the large number of troops in the Middle East because this will jeopardize the political systems of the Muslim countries, which are still US allies. The only remaining way to do this is by using bases in Europe and East Mediterranean.

There are signs that at least some of the countries in South-Eastern Europe are ready to give a green light for US warplanes, which means that they already have been asked by Washington to be prepared for such development. How exactly this war will be tailored in diplomatic terms still remains a mystery. The only certain thing is that if the US decide to attack Iraq this November, they will enjoy a full logistic support of its main European allies like in the war with Yugoslavia in 1999. The only thing the Europeans will probably ask Washington will be to finish with Saddam as quickly as possible and to put an end to the wars in the neighborhood.

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