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Why Jacques Chirac begs to
differ
By Jean-Paul Chagnollaud
Despite intense pressure from Washington,
several weeks into negotiations at the United Nations
Security Council, France still is holding to its
position on how to resolve the current crisis in
international policy toward Iraq.
As stated by
the minister of foreign affairs before the National
Assembly, France prefers a two-pronged approach: First,
France wants a resolution to specify the practical
arrangements that will permit the return of UN
inspectors to verify that Iraq does not have proscribed
weapons of mass destruction. This first step should
re-establish consensus at the Security Council, which is
the only way to send a clear and strong message to
Saddam Hussein. Then, if Saddam refuses or obstructs the
inspectors, the Security Council should reconvene to
determine what to do next - if necessary, passing a
second resolution.
France, so far supported by
Russia, has refused to sign onto Washington's preferred
option: a single resolution which lays out automatic
armed intervention as the penalty for Iraqi
non-compliance. When Washington offered a slightly
watered-down version of its resolution in mid-October,
France and Russia surprised many observers by
circulating their own draft resolutions among Security
Council members. The French text removed references to
Iraq being in "material breach" of its obligation to
disarm, whereas Russia's draft omitted language
promising "serious consequences" for Iraqi
non-compliance with inspections. Both phrases are viewed
at the UN as "hidden triggers" for US military action,
an eventuality the vast majority of member states seek
to avoid.
A convergence of French public
opinion
The political climate that reigns in
France is quite different from that which prevailed in
1990 after the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. At that
time, France tried to advance a political solution, laid
out in a speech delivered by president Francois
Mitterrand in September 1990 to the UN General Assembly.
Once the die was cast, however, Mitterrand's government
quickly lined up with the logic of war. France sent an
important contingent to participate in Operation Desert
Storm, and until 1998 French warplanes flew alongside US
and British jets that today police, and periodically
bomb, the no-fly zone in southern Iraq.
In
1990-91, opposition to military intervention was in the
minority. Nevertheless, a very intense debate took place
in the country between those who supported the official
position and those who contested it. Today such a debate
is absent. A fairly large consensus of French opinion
supports the position taken by President Jacques Chirac,
and ferociously criticizes what, in Paris, is often
called George W Bush's "Iraq obsession".
Today
all arguments on the French political spectrum converge
on two essential points. First, the objective of
international intervention in Iraq must be disarmament
of the Iraqi regime, as mandated by UN resolutions, and
not "regime change". No matter how atrocious Saddam
Hussein's dictatorship may be, the Bush administration
policy of regime change flies in the face of principles
of international law.
France is not opposed to
the principle of outside intervention in the affairs of
sovereign states, as it has progressively developed over
the past years. But Washington's proposed method of
ousting Saddam Hussein by force awards victory to the
strongest, instituting a sort of law of the jungle that
would quickly devour what international law has brought
to the regulation of international relations for over 50
years.
Second, resolution of the 2002 Iraq
crisis should be relegated to the UN. The first priority
is to negotiate a return of UN weapons inspectors to
Iraq, where they should do their work without
impediment. As the Iraqi regime has now accepted the
inspectors' return in principle, French opinion feels
that the regime's word should be taken at face value,
and that inspections should proceed as far as possible
in locating and destroying Iraq's putative weapons of
mass destruction. If, after maximum effort, inspections
still lead to an impasse, all subsequent action should
be based on international law and authorized by the only
legitimate body: the Security Council.
For some
in France, this means recourse to force; for others, it
does not. The right and the left differ on this
eventuality. The government and its parliamentary
majority refuse to rule out an armed response if Saddam
doesn't respect his obligations, while the left is
hostile to any recourse to force. Trade unions, the
Communist Party, the Green Party and the Socialist Party
sponsored the first demonstration against the
prospective war on October 2 in Paris and in dozens of
other French cities. Together the left forces signed a
letter affirming that any military intervention carries
within it the germ of general catastrophe. Instead of
attacking the problem of international terrorism, the
destabilization of the Middle East resulting from a war
on Iraq can only revive global tensions. The text asks
the French government to use its veto at the Security
Council - should the US ask for authorization of a
military strike - and to consider more than ever the
need to negotiate political solutions within the
confines of international law, in order to construct a
durable peace in the Middle East.
Apprehensions of a Middle Eastern
crisis
Motivations behind French policy revolve
around several considerations. France is convinced that
today's international priority should be the struggle
against terrorism. As the dramatic events in Bali
recently revealed, this struggle cannot be derailed by a
war against Iraq, whose alleged collusion with al-Qaeda
has never been proven. If it had been, al-Qaeda would
obviously have figured more prominently in Bush's
arguments for war.
In the Middle East, Paris
figures that the most urgent matter is the escalating
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the past two years,
the situation on the ground has deteriorated severely.
The Israeli government has adopted nothing but an
aggressive posture, doing everything to destroy the
Palestinian Authority (PA) without ever proposing a
political exit from the crisis. Chirac continues to
repeat that the conflict cannot be resolved by military
force; a political solution must be negotiated under the
aegis of an international conference.
The French
authorities believe that a unilateral attack on Iraq
will deepen the broader crisis in the Middle East,
especially since Bush appears to have authorized Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to respond to any Iraqi
missile attack, unlike 1991 when the US pressed Israel
not to retaliate. In private, French diplomats
hypothesize that Sharon may go well beyond a riposte
against Iraq, seizing the opportunity to attack the
Palestinians, Hizbullah in southern Lebanon and even the
Syrians. These diplomats listened apprehensively when PA
official Nabil Shaath came to Paris and several other
European capitals to ask what Europe would do if the
Palestinians were to be expelled en masse from the West
Bank.
Jacques Chirac: M
Federation
Above and beyond these regional
concerns, French diplomacy is preoccupied with the new
strategic posture adopted by the Bush administration -
what is being called "American unilateralism". Bush's
concept of the preemptive, or preventive, strike caused
much anxiety in the National Assembly. Prime Minister
Jean-Pierre Raffarin himself spoke of Washington's
"simplistic vision" that divides the world into good and
evil, and forcefully rejected the US approach which,
ignoring international law, envisages war as the first
alternative. Raffarin added that international law
should be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as
well as to Iraq.
This analysis is largely shared
by the major French media. Le Monde, which famously
printed an editorial entitled "We Are All Americans" in
the aftermath of September 11, has resumed a very
critical position toward the US. A recent political
cartoon on the front page showed Chirac leading a
juvenile Bush by the hand. When the two men arrive in
front of an old sage symbolizing the UN, Chirac says to
Bush, "Go on, Jojo, say your piece to the man." The
delinquent Bush, armed with a revolver, says, "If it's
all right with you, sir, I would like to make war."
Positioned right in the middle of the European
debate between British servility toward US war plans and
the radical refusal of Germany to participate in
military action, Jacques Chirac finds himself playing
the role of Monsieur Federation. His position is very
firmly grounded on principle but open to compromise,
being supported by Germany and, in a fashion, by Great
Britain. During a recent meeting, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder said, "I have the utmost respect for
France's role." British Prime Minister Tony Blair has
chosen to stand by Bush's position, but he must take
into account the wide gap between his posture and
British public opinion, as well as the public
disapproval of a number of Labor MPs. Blair has thus
insisted, echoing France, that the US gain the
imprimatur of the UN.
Compromise or
diplomatic cover?
For his part, Chirac is riding
high. Since his first election to office in 1995, his
stature as a statesman has never been so lofty - not
even during the war in Kosovo. For the first time, he
finds his neo-Gaullist credentials accepted everywhere.
Arab states now find France to be a solid ally in their
resistance to an attack on Iraq under great pressure
from Arab public opinion. On a recent trip to Egypt,
Chirac restated his message, "This region doesn't need
another war." Soon thereafter, he attended the summit of
Francophone countries, which for the first time was held
on Arab soil, in Beirut. There Chirac could once again
assemble a consensus around his position on Iraq. On the
domestic front, the consensus backing Chirac's policy
improves his standing with the French population of Arab
origin, particularly North Africans.
To date,
French policy on the question of Iraq has the great
merit of being contrary to, and thus forcing reflection
upon, a US administration that seems walled in by its
certitude. Anxious to secure a tough new resolution by
the end of October, the Bush administration has upped
rhetoric intended to strong-arm the Security Council
into cooperation, with Bush again comparing the UN to
the League of Nations and promising that the US "will
lead a coalition and disarm Saddam Hussein" if a
resolution does not pass soon.
Since respect for
international law and the role of the United Nations
lies at the heart of the Security Council debate, the
destiny of international relations is at stake. The
compromise resolution on Iraq that may take shape as
France, along with Russia, continues to resist the US
position could provide a map for the future - on the
condition that Bush does not consider the compromise
mere diplomatic cover under which to prepare his
unilateral offensive.
Jean-Paul
Chagnollaud, a political scientist, is director of
the journal Confluences-Mediterranee in Paris.
Translated from the French by David McMurray.
This article first appeared as MERIP Press
Information Note 110 on October 28. Available online at
http://merip.org/pins/pin110.html.
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