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| Europe |
| Forget Powellâs tour de France, rapprochement is not a word Bush wants to hear |
| 2003-05-23 |
| So did George Bush really, really mean it when he promised Jacques Chirac that he would never forgive or forget French perfidy and Franceâs machinations at the UN during the run-up to the war for regime change in Iraq? The short answer is âyesâ. True, Colin Powell is performing his role as good cop by touring Europe and making soothing noises to the French and Germans. After all, that is what diplomats do. True, too, that the Germans are trying to return to Americaâs good graces by offering more support for Taleban-clearing efforts in Afghanistan. Even the French, with the scent of new contracts in their nose, and urged on by a nervous foreign policy establishment, are suggesting that ... that practical men of affairs must put past treacheries behind them. So yesterday Chirac directed his representative to support an American resolution ending sanctions against Iraq â although his ever-unctuous Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, made it clear that such support should not âfor an instantâ be taken as âlegitimisingâ the coalitionâs war against the Iraqi regime. All very interesting, and all completely irrelevant to the future course of US foreign policy. Call it unilateralist, call it Wilsonian, call it Rooseveltian (Theodore, not Franklin) in its robust willingness to use military power to defend what has come to be called the homeland, it boils down to one thing: an unwillingness ever again to cede the defence of Americaâs vital interests to any body in which the French â or anyone else, but especially the French â can interfere with that defence. American policy once favoured European integration. That was then and this is now. The emerging European superstate is seen by France as a rival to the US, not an ally. The euro is seen less as a facilitator of intra-EU trade than as a rival to the dollar. And the new European Defence Force is clearly aimed by France at becoming a substitute for, rather than the supplement to, Nato that Tony Blair hoped it would be. Most important in the emerging American view is the fact that the multinational institutions at best no longer serve American interests, and at worst can be used by France to thwart Americaâs defence of its interests. The French veto on the UN Security Council is an anachronism. It could be tolerated so long as it was wielded with discretion, but Chirac overplayed his hand when he used it to harass and humiliate the United States. Even Colin Powell now feels that American policy must be put beyond the reach of a France determined to restore la gloire by tweaking Uncle Samâs nose. This policy need not mean withdrawing from the UN. The UN can be treated with the benign neglect that will relegate it to a talking- shop-cum-emergency relief organisation, the President might just be able to muster enough Texan bonhomie to be cordial to Chirac and Gerhard Schröder at G8 meetings, and the Administration can leave French-bashing in the able hands of the American and British media. But the new policy will mean relying on ad hoc coalitions of nations that share American values, rather than on a UN in which France holds a veto and nations predominate that see Libya and Cuba as worthy members of its human rights commission. It will mean working with individual members of the EU who see America as a defender of freedom, rather than with the Franco-German axis that sees America as a rival âpoleâ. Powellâs spokesman says âthereâs all kinds of reasonsâ for yesterdayâs meeting between the Secretary of State in Paris and de Villepin and the other G8 foreign ministers. Permanent rapprochement with France is not one of them. |
| Posted by:Omer Ishmail |
| #13 In France, the left (socialists and communists), the right (Le Pen's supporters), the center (Gaulists), and the Muslim immigrants have only one thing in common: they all hate the US. Anti-Americanism is the glue that holds the country together. |
| Posted by: closet neo-con 2003-05-23 13:09:10 |
| #12 BTW, that should be Grand Ecoles... mixing my Spanish with French again. Here is a good link about the Grand Ecoles from an Indian perspective. The author draws some very flawed conclusions, but his lack of Yankee revulsion at such a system brings out some perspectives that you would not find in the US press. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-05-23 12:56:47 |
| #11 Dan D: I think that you hit it on the nose about the non-reality based realpolitik. Someone wrote a good piece a few months ago analyzing French policy and strategy errors going back to the Maginot Line. I would go even further -- back to to the Panama Canal -- where the French killed off a generation of their best engineers and Plan 17, their disasterous operational plan for counterattacking a German invasion in 1914. The bottom line is that the French have not been conducting a realistic foreign/military/economic (fill in the blank) policy in many, many years -- perhaps in over a century. My personal belief is that the French inability to compete globally is due to the very authoritarian nature of their culture (see Geert Hofstede's writings, particularly his idea of power distance). The most obvious manifestation of this is the French cult of the Gran Ecoles. Only the graduates of these institutions are deemed qualified to be leaders in their field. Upward mobility is thus impossible. Dissent is effectively quashed. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-05-23 12:24:07 |
| #10 Liberalhawk: You stole my thunder, but let's do some probablity. I think #4 takes the cake. Leftists in France voted en masse (while holding their noses) for Chirac last year. Lesser of 2 evils to the max as they didn't want to have Le Pen in power. How to make them love him? Stand up to Oncle Sam, bien sur. Now the rats are scattering from the ship as seen in last week's public workers strikes over cuts in retirement benefits. Great planning Jacques! Next has to be #2 as they figured Labor backbenchers would be able to force Tony to back off on his determination to take out Baathists. French strategists figured pressure from demos/Claire Short/Red Livingstone crowd would do job for them. WRONG!!! As for #1 and #3, Chirac probably relies on his drinking pal, Hariri of Lebanon and also Assad Boy for advice in these domains. What advice! BTW, caught about 5 min. this morning of da vile pin's opening statement at G8 and French are definitely insecure and so willing to do anything to get back into good graces of Powell. You can be sure they're trying to butter up friends at State. So Colin: Remember what you've said re French on Charlie Rose. No going back. French must understand this is a different world now. |
| Posted by: Michael 2003-05-23 11:21:52 |
| #9 LH: Those are all plausible and sound likely- taken together, they suggest that France is operating from some kind of "non-reality-based realpolitik". Kind of disturbing because it raises the question, what else could the French do that would be REALLY stupid? |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2003-05-23 10:18:43 |
| #8 Dave D. The French were used to dealing with former SecState Alldull and Bubba. They didn't know how to act with a real leader like Bush. |
| Posted by: Denny 2003-05-23 09:34:27 |
| #7 DD - either 1. They thought saddam would cooperate more than he did, which would have made it much more difficult for the US to act without the UN. When Saddam played differently (and less rationally) then they expected, it was too late to back down 2. They thought Blair was more vulnerable than he turned out to be 2b - they didnt expect Blair to get the support from the eastern europeans that he did. Again, once it became clear, it was too late to change. 3. They didnt expect the war to go as smoothly as it did - and expected the US to get bogged down - probably because they misjudged the iraqi regime and people, and the state of the "arab street" 4. They didnt care, they were playing domestic politics. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-05-23 09:06:32 |
| #6 What still has me scratching my head is, how did the French manage to misjudge our intentions so badly during the diplomatic wrangling that led up to the Iraq war? That's exactly what I'd like to know. What the hell were they thinking?!?! |
| Posted by: g wiz 2003-05-23 09:04:27 |
| #5 Jack - good question on whether to list the article's author or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes not, but it's always available by linking to the original article. Thoughts anyone? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-05-23 09:02:39 |
| #4 The French haven't been the masters of diplomacy in at least a century. I'm not completely sure what "mastery of diplomacy" would look like, but it seems to me that it doesn't look very much like having your capitol occupied by someone who surrendered to you just 22 years before. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-05-23 08:06:34 |
| #3 What still has me scratching my head is, how did the French manage to misjudge our intentions so badly during the diplomatic wrangling that led up to the Iraq war? What was it? Did they seriously believe their attempts at obstruction would not have any consequences? Did they really think we would be afraid to act without UN blessing? Bush certainly made his position clear when he went before the UN on September 12 of last year: the UN will either enforce its resolutions on Iraq, or the US will henceforth consider the UN to be irrelevant. Did the French think he was bluffing? Whatever, one thing is certain: the notion that the French are "masters of diplomacy" is about as dead as the idea that Saddam's Republican Guard were "elite". |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2003-05-23 07:25:50 |
| #2 Shouldn't proper blog etiquette require that the poster provide attribution to the author of the article? It was Irwin Stelzer's OpEd piece in the Times of London today, in case anyone wants to know. Of course the real "revenge" by Bush has been the weakening of the dollar and doing nothing to stop it. Believe me, in a few months Europe will be worse than Japan economically while they snicker today they will be jumping off the Eiffel Tower in September. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2003-05-23 07:14:10 |
| #1 "French noisily claim is the Administrationâs policy of leaking anti-French stories to the press." Leaking not fabrications,must be something to the stories. I would like to see an alliance of our real allies,set-up right next door to U.N.headquaters.Rub the U.N.s nose in it's perfidity. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2003-05-23 06:49:44 |