Merci, M. de Villepin
EDITORIAL Merci, M. de Villepin Let us be the first to say it: We owe a debt of gratitude to France, and particularly to its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin. He has clarified the present...
...For them, as for the French, it isn't about disarming Saddam...
...Anyone who suggested that a new round of U.N...
...Thus Senator Chuck Hagel is still pleading, a la frangaise, for the inspectors to be given more time...
...Nor are all Europeans likely to be entirely comfortable with France's increasingly notable propensity to appease vicious dictators, not just Saddam but also Robert Mugabe, whom the French have just invited to Paris in apparent violation of a European Union travel ban...
...In response to French and German demands to give more time to the inspectors, Powell last week insisted, "Inspections will not work...
...The Bush administration is, finally, united around the need for military action...
...The French have put an end to that game...
...As Powell points out, and as we and others have pointed out many times, with or without a U.N...
...Security Council authorization for war will be unobtainable, regardless of whether Saddam complies with Resolution 1441...
...It is likely to produce beneficial effects on both sides of the Atlantic...
...M. de Villepin declared at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council last Monday, "Already we know for a fact that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are being largely blocked, even frozen...
...If Saddam had intended to disarm he already would be doing so...
...Australia has already begun sending troops, even though the Australians live thousands of miles away from the zone of crisis...
...For months, proponents of this approach enjoyed the luxury of not having to choose between their professed devotion to a multilateralist foreign policy and their professed commitment to disarm Iraq...
...More important, however, is the clarifying effect that the French position will have on the American debate...
...But most of all we want to see the United States and a coalition of willing partners take the action necessary to defend and preserve international security...
...Now France has declared that it will not insist on Iraqi compliance or on "serious consequences" for its failure to comply...
...For several months now, a great swath of the American foreign policy elite, both Democrats and Republicans, have been trying to finesse the question of what to do about Iraq...
...authorization for any war but also opening the possibility of achieving the disarmament of Iraq peacefully...
...But lo and behold, now it is not enough for Hagel after all...
...Powell voiced appropriate skepticism about the real intentions of those who are asking that the inspectors be given more time...
...We wonder if Powell will now suffer the same widespread condemnation that Cheney did when he said just this five months ago...
...Therefore, American politicians and the foreign policy elite will have to make clear, once and for all, whether or not they support the disarming of Iraq and the removal of Saddam's regime from power, by force, and without U.N...
...It is now likely that U.N...
...Then he argued that "if we run the diplomatic track . . . and in the end we cannot get a Security Council resolution, then the United States has exhausted all the means, diplomatic means and channels, and then we'll make a call...
...Wouldn't it be simpler if Hagel, and others who share his view, simply dropped the pretense...
...Security Council Resolution 1441, which it helped negotiate this past November...
...As M. de Villepin told the Security Council this past Monday, "nothing justifies envisaging military action...
...Four months later, the Bush administration, under Powell's lead, has done precisely what Hagel demanded...
...And Hagel went on to argue that it would be "a huge mistake if the president went forward without the support of our allies and the consent of the United Nations...
...Let's wait and give the inspectors an opportunity to work this through," Hagel argued this past week, without even bothering to hint at how much more time they should be given...
...The case against Saddam is clear-cut...
...And it isn't even about multilateralism...
...The funny thing is, Hagel professed to have a different view back in September...
...In an obvious reference to the French government, Powell wondered aloud "whether they're serious about bringing it to a conclusion at some time...
...For while Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, have reacted with consistency and integrity to the turn of events both in Baghdad and at the Security Council, some prominent leaders of what until now might have been called the Powell camp in Congress seem to have abandoned the secretary of state...
...He still opposes war without "the consent of the United Nations," a consent everyone knows will probably not be forthcoming...
...Most important perhaps, the faux-hawkish multilater-alists will not be able to hide behind Colin Powell anymore...
...Having given Saddam one last chance to disarm peacefully, and having sincerely tried to work with the French, Powell is ready to move forward with the disarmament of Iraq by force and without a new U.N...
...Security Council...
...If the French agreed, they argued, the United States could go to war...
...That resolution also declared that if Iraq failed to comply, it would face "serious consequences," understood by all Security Council members to mean war...
...Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld raised a furor in Paris and Berlin last week when he contrasted the "old Europe" of France and Germany to the "new Europe" of Poland, the Czech Republic, and other recent entrants into the European Union...
...An American invasion of Iraq will not be a unilateral action, not by a long shot...
...We would prefer it if France and Germany also joined forces with the United States in common defense of international security...
...And for some there was another great advantage: Those who opposed war against Iraq under any circumstances, but who for political reasons did not want to admit it, could hide behind the demand for "multilateralism...
...They have been insisting that any military action by the United States has to be undertaken with the authority of the U.N...
...And, indeed, "the Brits and the Turks and others are with us," just as Hagel suggested...
...Now the president, who has led us to this point, can give the word...
...In Europe, France's provocation will have the effect of forcing European governments to choose sides between U.S.-sponsored action to disarm Iraq and French determination to protect Saddam Hussein from American power...
...The international situation has clarified...
...We would prefer it if the U.N...
...Again, we thank M. de Villepin for his candor...
...He has clarified the present geopolitical situation and put an end to illusions...
...There can be no more obfuscation...
...authorization...
...Robert Kagan and William Kristol...
...They just oppose the war...
...Their position allowed the appearance of toughness and resolve— "These weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power," Senator Joe Biden declared last July—while also providing a good vantage point for attacking "hawks" and "unilateralists" and "neo-conservatives...
...What is more, while European discomfort with American power is a reality, there is discomfort, too, with the aggressive pacifism of Gerhard Schroder and, for now at least, of Jacques Chirac...
...As Powell argues, it would be ridiculous now to extend the time for inspections...
...When the president announces that the United States is going to war, and the attack begins, the United States will have many allies indeed: in addition to the nations already mentioned, Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and probably others...
...This week M. de Villepin cast aside months of diplomatic pretense and revealed hitherto unspoken truths about French foreign policy: First, France does not, in fact, seek the disarmament of Iraq or even the elimination of Saddam Hussein's programs for producing weapons of mass destruction...
...Second, it is now clear that the government of France does not, in fact, support implementation of U.N...
...Those who hold this view have considered Secretary of State Colin Powell their great champion...
...Secretary Powell has taken a clear stand...
...inspections would not work, as Vice President Dick Cheney did in August, was demonized as a warmonger...
...We wonder the same thing about some American politicians...
...Nothing...
...We believe that is a healthy thing, in part because it will reveal that France in no way speaks for all European governments, perhaps not even for a majority of them...
...authorization...
...Security Council supported war against Saddam...
...The United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, and other European allies are already committed to supporting an American-led action, and more will join the coalition...
...No one was forced to answer the question: What if, despite everything, the French did not agree...
...The sputtering outrage at Rumsfeld's remarks in Paris and Berlin is, we suspect, a sign of anxiety that the new entrants cannot be counted on to follow the Franco-German lead against the United States...
...Anyone who suggested that the United States did not necessarily need Security Council authorization to legitimize the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, and who pointed out that the United States likely could not obtain such authorization, was denounced as a "unilateralist" determined to destroy world order...
...Security Council Resolution, the United States will not "go it alone" in Iraq...
...The French government thereby acknowledged that Saddam Hussein does indeed have such programs—but according to M. de Villepin France does not consider it necessary for Iraq to do away with them...
...And they considered Powell's negotiation of Security Council Resolution 1441 to be a great victory for the multilateralist approach, not only potentially providing the United States with the legitimacy of U.N...
...And if, in fact, we find at the end of the day that the Brits and the Turks and others are with us, then we'll have the option to do that...
...That resolution stated that Iraq was being given "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations," obligations that Iraq had agreed to under the terms of the cease-fire ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and that it has failed to fulfill for the last dozen years...
Vol. 8 • February 2003 • No. 20
