[A-List] France: 'realist' appraisal of options

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Chirac should be more cynical
By François Heisbourg
Financial Times: June 3 2003

In the run-up to the Iraqi conflict, France thwarted the US-led attempt to
convince the United Nations Security Council to authorise the opening of
hostilities. Although Jacques Chirac's government recognises that the damage
to the transatlantic relationship must be repaired, it is a sense of
diplomatic victory that informs France's postwar choices, not a feeling of
failure. A creeping realisation of the costs has not turned popular or elite
opinion against the government's pre-war stance, despite some pointed
questioning by French business.
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There has been no real attempt to bury the hatchet. Until the tentative
words at the Evian summit this week, Mr Chirac had only one telephone
conversation with President George W. Bush, a few exchanges with Britain's
Tony Blair, and a general toning-down of rhetoric. America's difficulties in
occupying Iraq and Mr Blair's troubles over the alleged distortion of
intelligence will only encourage France to stick to its line.

The sense of vindication in Paris is sustaining the romantic element in Mr
Chirac's foreign policy. It would be wrong to attribute his motivations over
Iraq to cynical arrogance. Both Mr Chirac and Mr Blair were driven by the
politics of conviction.

If a charge is to be levelled against French policy, it is a lack of realism
(a politically correct version of cynicism) and an excess of conviction.

However, France will have to balance its romantic temptation with the
realities of the post-war world. It must start with the role of the UN in
the reconstruction of Iraq. France is pursuing two objectives that are
treated as largely interchangeable but that are in practice different: the
first is its refusal to legitimise ex-post the American-British invasion of
Iraq; the second is to ensure a central role for the UN.

The only way of securing the second objective is to compromise on the first.
Paris went some way towards this last month by agreeing to the lifting of
sanctions and by recognising the role of the occupying powers. And, as soon
as the Americans aired plans for a "stabilisation force" in Iraq, the French
immediately made it known that they would not object to the use of Nato.
France will not participate directly in the postwar military administration
of Iraq. Given the difficulties on the ground, this is probably sensible,
especially when French forces have other peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan,
the Balkans, West Africa and soon in the Congo.

Such a sensible mix of principle and realism is not yet apparent in foreign
policy more generally. France's political discourse is dominated by the
vision of a multipolar world mapped out by Hubert Védrine, the socialist
former foreign minister. Some of this language is no doubt destined for
domestic political consumption, in itself an indication of the depth and the
breadth of anti-americanism in France, abetted by the American talk of
"punishment". However, this is not the whole story. The idea of
multipolarity is, by definition, to balance the American pole.

It is not only a reactive, defensive concept but also an unrealistic one,
since there is no prospect of a stable pole emerging between China, Russia,
India and France. For each of them, the relationship with the US is more
important than any other. Most seriously, the concept of multipolarity
divides the European Union, destroying any prospect of Paris's cherished aim
of a Europe-puissance.

A rapprochement between France and those EU countries that backed America in
the Iraq war requires less emphasis on multipolarity and more on
multilateralism. The quest for a rule-based international system is a vision
that potentially unites all of the current EU members, if not necessarily
all those queuing up to join. Multilateralism is a positive objective; it
can lead to friction with America, but not because it is directed against
it.

Most importantly, embracing multilateralism rather than multipolarity would
allow a rapprochement between France and Britain. In turn, this would help
lay the ground for a gradual restoration of civil relations between the US
and France. The US tendency no longer to treat France as an ally can
probably not be overturned by French diplomatic action and political and
business lobbying alone.

It is too early to assume that this shift is going to happen. But this is
the road that France's European partners should encourage it to pursue.
Having strongly asserted the role of multilateral institutions during the
Iraqi crisis, France's foreign policy should be able to switch from
multipolar to multilateral.

If this switch does not happen, France's diplomatic triumph in the Security
Council, obtained in the face of the full range of the sole superpower's
inducements, blandishments and coercion will turn into a Pyrrhic victory.

The writer is director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris