But while terror from Sri Lanka to Spain, Algeria to Pakistan, Atlanta to Manchester has built enormous pressure for a tangible response by governments, the Paris meeting showed that Europe and the U.S. differ fundamentally on how to fight terrorism, and that joint action has been painfully slow. Simon Jenkins, former editor of The Times of London, wrote that a conference on traffic accidents would have made more sense and saved more lives. That few such measures are in place internationally gives a clue to the problem. In the case of terrorism, maneuver often means doing deals. What is received in return for such gestures is never revealed, but terrorism experts question whether it is coincidence, for example, that last summer's bombings in France by the Armed Islamic Group stopped as abruptly as they had begun.
Deals are typically bilateral, based on national rather than international interest.
The U.S. wanted the Paris meeting to approve an international commission to coordinate the fight against terrorism, plus political and economic sanctions against countries that foster it, specifically Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Libya. The U.S. did not push for these measures in the face of European rejection, but State Department officials were privately angry, particularly with France and Germany. There was also skepticism in the U.S. about the effectiveness of some agreed-on measures. Germans, in turn, are less than flattering about the American stance, and ask, as do other countries, why America would leave both Syria and Saudi Arabia off its proposed sanctions list. The test of the Paris meeting will come in November, the deadline for various groups of experts to report back on implementation of the measures approved.