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| Europe |
| Plus ça change: When Chirac led calls to attack |
| 2003-03-10 |
| By stubbornly resisting President George W. Bush's call for immediate military action in Iraq, President Jacques Chirac is being vilified by U.S. pundits as anti-American, craven, engaged in a ludicrous attempt to revive France's failed grandeur. Everyone seems to have forgotten that just a few years back the roles were diametrically reversed. It was Chirac who obliged a reluctant, vacillating U.S. president to bypass a hapless United Nations force and order military action to end the slaughter in the former Yugoslavia. A further touch of irony: The most influential American opposing U.S. military involvement in the region was General Colin Powell. For years the United States and its allies looked on as Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian troops rampaged through the former Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing as they went. Brutal Serbian commanders thumbed their noses at the lightly equipped soldiers of the UN peacekeeping force, who had no mandate to take forceful action. Americans criticized the Europeans for doing nothing to end the killings. Europeans retorted that, since the United States was unwilling to commit its own forces to the task, it had no right to speak. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until September 1993, was adamant that the United States should not become involved. Powell was determined that no weak-kneed civilian politicians would be able to commit U.S. troops to a vague campaign that could turn into a military quagmire. As David Halberstam wrote in his excellent account of that period, "War in a Time of Peace," Powell "wanted to avoid the careless, poorly thought out, deliberately disingenuous decision-making that had led to the debacle in Vietnam." As Serbian atrocities mounted, the United States and its allies continued to wring their hands and prevaricate. President Bill Clinton was feeling the heat, but his staff was unable to come up with any acceptable policy. Then in June 1995, on the day that Chirac took office as president of France, a unit of French UN peacekeepers was taken hostage by the Serbs, tied to trees and chained to Serbian artillery pieces. Chirac, who had been wounded after he volunteered to serve in the French Army in Algeria, was outraged. "I will not accept this," he told aides. "You can kill French soldiers, you can wound them, but you cannot humiliate them! That will end today. France will not accept that! We will change the rules of the game." Unless the French soldiers were given a new mandate to act, Chirac said, he would pull them out. Chirac called the French commander who had lost a key bridge in Bosnia and gave him 24 hours to retake it. He then called Prime Minister John Major of Britain and proposed establishing a rapid reaction force of elite, well-armed French and British troops, with a mandate to take action, bypassing the impotent UN peacekeepers. The United States would be asked to provide air support and helicopters. Chirac met with Clinton, forcefully pushed his new concept and urged the president to take a much tougher line in the Balkans. Some of Clinton's aides were annoyed by what they viewed as Chirac's Gallic posturing. But a speech by Chirac on Bastille Day finally provoked Clinton to move. France, Chirac said, wanted to take action, but regrettably France was alone. He recalled the West's appeasement of Hitler. The implication was that the West lacked a leader. Clinton was apoplectic. He finally gave the go-ahead for a more aggressive policy that bypassed the UN command and eventually led to the intensive bombing of Serbian forces. That, along with a surprisingly successful offensive by the Croats, finally convinced Milosevic to back down. The way was open to the Dayton peace talks. "Chirac cornered us,â said Richard Holbrooke, who presided over those negotiations. "But that was important because it forced us to see reality, to know that the United States could no longer refuse to get involved." |
| Posted by:ISHMAIL |
| #3 This is shameless revisionism. France was and still is a supporter of the Serbs in their struggle to subdue all of former Yugoslavia's peoples into one, Serbian-led whole. It were the French who tipped off both Milosevic and Karadzic on different occasions. It were the French who have resisted a powerful intervention till the last moment. It's about time people woke up and recognize this French government for what it is : a bunch of foolish neo-Bonapartists who want to dominate Europe. It's time to form a new anti-Bonapartist coalition and to inflict another Waterloo on their plans. |
| Posted by: Peter 2003-03-10 07:45:33 |
| #2 {sputter}{sputter} They can't clean up the mess in their own back yard and it's our fault?!!!!!? Time, indeed, for a Sixth Republic! |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-03-10 07:32:07 |
| #1 Ironic indeed, but the self-interest thread that ties all French foreign policy together is clear to see. Having turned a blind eye to years of atrocities, it was only his emotional reaction to a few French members of the Corps des Poseurs being tied to trees that persuaded Chirac to "do the right thing". "You can kill French soldiers, you can wound them, but you cannot humiliate them!": Who does he think he is, Napoleon?! "Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until September 1993, was adamant that the United States should not become involved.": And frankly, why should they? Like NKor, this wasn't happening on the US's doorstep, but at the feet of other liberal democracies that could, and should, have dealt with the problem themselves. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-03-10 05:36:53 |