Second
only to the assault on Iraq, the diplomatic conflict pitting France
against the US has seized citizens on both sides of the Atlantic. It
would be foolish to claim that all or even most Americans despise
France. Just as it would be simplistic to suggest that most French
are anti-American. Throughout the tumult wrought by the latter’s
opposition to war on Iraq, what does remain undeniable is that moral
conflict always accompanies war. Among allies, seldom has its
ravages been as explicit as in the French-American split.
Years
ago, after Jacques Chirac was first elected president, America may
have been a different place. It didn’t mean that anti-French
sentiment had abated since de Gaulle’s time. Fulfilling a key
campaign promise, president Chirac decided to relaunch the French
nuclear weapons testing program in 1995. This unilateral, aggressive
decision, which temporally suspended the comprehensive international
nuclear test ban treaty, was received in the US with indignation.
Boycotts were threatened. Bordeaux wines began spilling out of
Cartier glasses, real or fake. French luxury goods exporters were
tickled with the fear of losing their most lucrative market.
In
the end Chirac stuck to his promise of limiting the program to six
tests. He then strutted his Gallic-tinted grammatically-perfect
English on Larry King Live, reminiscing of his youthful stint as a
waiter in New Jersey. All was soon forgotten.
American
television now abounds again with scenes of patriots emptying
bottles of French red wine in the gutter - year and vintage
unspecified. A slew of pundits has appeared on television networks
lamenting France’s threat to use its veto were a second resolution
passed, de facto allowing the US to attack Iraq. And radio
talk shows across the nation have opened their airways to greet the
most frustrated, ignorant voices of a country that long ago gave up
on learning about the world, to say nothing of understanding it.
The
Scapegoating of France
How
could a united opposition to America’s drive to war have
landed so hard atop a single nation? |
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Despite
precedence in singling out France, a few troubling questions remain
about its most recent avatar. Namely, how could a united opposition
to America’s drive to war have landed so hard atop a single
nation? What led to France being scapegoated in a presidential
administration’s violent thirst for revenge for the Twin
Towers-Pentagon bombings? These are troubling developments
for, lest one forget, Jacques Chirac was the first world leader to
have personally laid a wreath at Ground Zero.
France
does not even lie at the source of the current diplomatic crisis.
Last fall Germany led the voices of opposition to Bush’s war
plans. American pundits lunged at the throat of chancellor Schroder,
accusing him of electoral opportunism. He would have chosen to
“ride on the discontent expressed by Germans” in his bid for
re-election. Slammed for snubbing the US, the German leader was
condemned for doing so by using the resources of democracy. Or in
the parlay of political philosophy: by representing the people’s
will.
Priorities
between the people and many of its governors have clearly been at
odds in this conflict. In spite of appealing to the UN prior to
engaging in an invasion, the US was never able to prove to the
Security Council that the reconstruction of Iraq’s arms industry
threatened the US anymore than it did Europe or China. On the other
hand, the risk of terrorism as a consequence of an invasion does.
France’s
diplomatic perplexity took center stage during the debate. It grew
in concentration until the climatic representation made by Bush in
his declaration of war, in which France was single-handedly pointed
out as meddling with and, worse, impeding American affairs.
Experiencing tension as well in his relationship with Tony Blair,
France’s president Jacques Chirac responded with a strongly worded
speech in which the US was criticized for lamentably undermining the
progress made in international and multilateral relations since
1945.
The
relationship between the two countries has been frozen in the wake
of the discord. The US has rejoined Mother-England in its millenary
struggle against the Franks as it seeks to “democratize” the
world. On the French side, when politicians and intellectuals
aren’t shedding their tears at what has happened, those who lent
their fate to the UN stand firm in insisting that the US needs the
Organization for humanitarian services.
On
the American side, bitterness erupts at a pinprick. When it isn’t
in the hysteria of a woman paying homage at Ground Zero and tearing
into French diplomacy on international television as a stab in the
back.
Political
or Economic Consequences?
Will the EU allow the US and Britain to rebuild Iraq alone? |
|
What
long-term consequences will follow from this discord, whether they
are primarily political or economic, remains an open question. Yet
at this point the damage is so clearly political that one may be led
to believe again that politics is not merely a veil for economics
and trade.
Before
the onset of the American aggression, France controlled about 22.5
percent of Iraq’s imports. Yet, according to the CIA World
Factbook, the US is cited as Iraq’s biggest export
partner (46.2 percent). The intertwined relations by which
international trade occurs is plain to see.
The
US was never hypocritical enough to suggest that it was importing
Iraqi oil primarily due to the benefits brought to the country from
the Oil-for-Food program. What remains clear is that without the
green bill Iraq would never have been able to buy imports from
France. France has now lost its Iraq market. The question remains
whether the EU, with France in its midst, will allow the US and
England to rebuild Iraq alone. This is where the game of
consequences is played out.
Given
that France is a cornerstone of the European Union as well as a
permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and NATO,
these multilateral institutions are being tested like they have
never been. As a member of a European Union that, since its
inception, has shown little willingness to be distinct from the US
trade, political and military agendas, we might be witnessing a key
moment in Europe’s progression. As an editorial in France’s Le
Monde recently put it, “this is where the soft spot has been
hit: for neither Europe nor France at this point have a strategic
counter-doctrine, nor enough forces.”
The
debate taking shape in Europe is facing off partisans of strong ties
with the US against those who favor greater distance especially from
its military. This is why even by the end of March, the dispute
between France and the US had hardly left the political arena.
Speaking on France’s A2 television station on March 23, Robert
Pingeon, head of the GOP in France, said that the consequences of
France’s threat to veto a new UN resolution will have cost it some
political influence in the world. Commercially, he could only
surmise whether there would be repercussions. Pingeon went on to
remind viewers that the US is home to many who take France to be a
difficult ally. Its recent diplomatic effort has only confirmed
their suspicions.
|
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Colin
Powell (L) and Dominique de Villepin
|
That
the consequences are especially political is also what the French
press has been mulling over. Le Monde ran a story on March 26
detailing the history of relations between Colin Powell and
Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister. In this lengthy
piece readers were reminded of the friendship formed between these
ministers, and the important role played by Powell in steering his
administration toward Resolution 1441. Yet despite the conflict, and
Le Monde’s journalistic integrity, we learn nothing of the
commercial damage that may come about from their dispute.
Although
president Chirac is often portrayed at home as a multilaterialist,
who stands firmly behind the UN, he is also only doing his job. The
role of France’s foreign affairs is the president’s. This is a
task endowed by the 1958 Constitution of la Cinquième République.
A key element of that foreign policy as it extends through the
European Union is commitment to creating an autonomous Palestinian
state. As Dr. Dalil Bourbakeur, rector of the Mosquée de Paris,
phrased it for the Financial Times, one of the things Bush
needed to do was help create a Palestinian homeland “just as the
president of the République suggested.”
Moreover,
neither France nor the European Union has forgiven Israel or the US
for allowing the destruction of the Palestinian Authority
infrastructure. The airport in Gaza and the entire complex in
Ramallah had largely come to fruition through EU funding. In the
meantime, the best the US mainstream press can do is send out alerts
on the rise of anti-Semitism in France, as if it were related in any
way whatsoever to its government’s commitment to a free Palestine.
Without Europe as an export market, the US current account deficit would drill. |
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The
French press has nonetheless vilified the Villepin-Chirac tandem,
criticized as a highly charged interchange of self-simulation with
little space allotted to reasoned moderation. Many also fear that
Villepin is too optimistic when emphasizing that the US needs the UN
and France, especially for humanitarian aid. His determined action,
he told a journalist on France’s A2, has been to confront the US
to its “collective political responsibility” - a sign of
France’s political solidarity and friendship.
At
bottom, the political repercussions may well undermine France’s
leading role in the European Union, though at present this seems
unlikely. France has gained clout internationally. As to the naive
objection that it is only standing up for its own interests, anyone
knows this to be a key part of the politician’s job. The fact
remains that without Europe as an export market, the US current
account deficit would drill deeper than any oil well. The country is
already suffering enough from an industrial angle by remaining the
world’s prime import economy.
Room
for Multilateral Progress
It is the EU’s diverse populations that yearn for distance from the US. |
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Whether
France lacks comfort in its sudden alliance with Putin’s Russia,
both countries are unwilling to forsake claims on the Iraqi
petroleum industry. Now tied with Venezuela as the world’s fifth
largest oil producer, Russia is interested in building a pipeline
from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf. France, with no domestic oil
production to count on even in its overseas “departments,”
has always had its eyes on securing part of the Iraqi oil supply.
As
for the “war on terrorism,” French society has intermittently
been torn by the scourge since the late nineteen-sixties. Its last
bout is as recent as 1995. If anything, France has learnt that
establishing a Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank is the
primary gesture toward peace. It is common knowledge in France that
the US helped fund bin Laden to create al-Qa’eda, while arming
Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. Precedence is not a positive
sign for the future prospects of the Washington “hawks.” It is
this future of violence that France wants as little as possible to
give conditions to repeating in the US, let alone at home.
It
is as yet impossible to predict the long-term economic consequences
for France and the EU based on the current dispute, even as far as
rebuilding Iraq is concerned. As for bilateral trade between the US
and France, protectionist and retaliatory trade decisions are
largely made out of political opportunism. As we saw in the case of
steel tariffs, arbitrary imposed by Bush in 2002 and judged illegal
by the WTO last week, it was carried out to please voters in
conventional steel industry-heavy states.
Last
Wednesday, Tony Blair made a surprising turn toward the UN. The
latter has proved to be resilient after all, and France will need
its resources. For were the war, terrorism and disorder to expand,
and the task of conquering Iraq to grow even more difficult for the
Americans, the diplomatic terms that have presided thus far in its
moral conflict with France may get uglier yet.
The
US could make France responsible for their setbacks. Scapegoating
would become an art. In that measure, it is not only France but the
entire European Union that risks suffering the burden. At any rate,
it is the EU’s diverse populations that yearn for distance from
the US. Yet they do so without seeking to bolster their own armed
forces. Where there is no ambiguity, however, is in their determined
rejection of any Anglo-American claims on unilateral action in the
Middle East - whether it be in the case of a US-UK victory, or not.
Norman
Madarasz
is a Canadian philosopher residing in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With a Ph.D. from the University of Paris,
he frequently writes on international North-South relations and on
the political economy and culture of Brazil. He is also a regular
contributor to Counterpunch and has published think pieces and
philosophical research extensively. You can reach him at nmphdiol@yahoo.ca
