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Holbrooke served as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations and Asmus was deputy assistant secretary of
state for European affairs in the Clinton
administration.
Such a deployment seems highly unlikely in view of
the deep rifts in transatlantic relations caused by
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which have
prevented NATO doing more than small-scale military
training in Baghdad.
"This has neither been discussed nor considered
formally or informally in NATO," NATO spokesman
James Appathurai said.
France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg opposed any
NATO support for the invasion and have since
resisted moves to involve the alliance more deeply.
Holbrooke and Asmus contend that a NATO presence as
part of a deal with the Iraqi Kurdish regional
leadership to rein in Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
guerrillas would help prevent Turkish military
intervention.
CONTAIN SPILLOVER
"NATO troops could help contain the spillover of an
Iraqi civil war and its spread to the part of Iraq
that is still peaceful, stable and
quasi-democratic," they argued.
The two senior Democrats said NATO was condemned to
"a slow but certain descent into marginalisation and
irrelevance" unless it became involved in the major
security challenges of the day.
With the exception of its peacekeeping mission in
Afghanistan, which is struggling to obtain
sufficient forces and flexible deployment, NATO was
barely present in the key hotspots in an arc of
crisis stretching from north Africa to Pakistan.
They said NATO might be needed in Lebanon if
European peacekeeping forces deployed after last
summer's fighting between Israel and Hizbollah
fighters got into trouble.
They also said the alliance should expand political
and military cooperation with Israel and Gulf Arab
states to help prepare for the risk of Iran
acquiring nuclear weapons. (additional reporting by
Mark John)
Reuters
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