Treading water
France this week joined Russia and Germany in calling for a reinforcement of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq and vetoing proposals to send NATO reinforcements to Turkey, writes David Tresilian from Paris
Following media reports last weekend of a secret Franco-German plan to reinforce the UN weapon inspectors in Iraq, possibly involving the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops, France joined with Russia and Germany on Monday in reiterating its support for the continuation of the UN inspections, with French President Jacques Chirac saying at a news conference in Paris that "nothing justifies war at this stage".
Chirac's comments, made during an official visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to France, echoed those of the Russian president, who reaffirmed his country's opposition to the use of force in Iraq, stating that Russia would be willing "if need be" to help reinforce the UN inspections in the country.
The comments by the French and Russian presidents were the clearest indication yet of European and Russian determination to resist US pressure for an early war against Iraq, coming as France joined Germany and Belgium in vetoing American attempts to send NATO reinforcements to Turkey in the run-up to a possible early war against Iraq.
Turkey is the only member of the 19-member trans-Atlantic alliance to have a border with Iraq, and it had requested NATO to reinforce its military capacities with US support, fearing a possible Iraqi attack in the event of war.
France led moves within NATO to veto the request, considering that it was an attempt by Washington to swing NATO behind war on Iraq and another step on the path to military conflict. Paris has strongly supported continuing weapons inspections in Iraq, refusing to be swayed by American pressure for war. Earlier, France, backed by Germany, had reacted to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation last week to the UN Security Council of evidence designed to press the American case for war by calling for the strengthening of the UN weapons inspections without setting any deadlines.
In an interview following Powell's presentation, Chirac said that there were "still many ways to disarm Iraq" other than a recourse to force and that "these have not been exhausted -- far from it."
"War is always a failure," he said. Similarly, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin reacted to US President George W Bush's remark that "the game is over" with regard to continuing UN weapons inspections by saying that for France "it's not a game, and it's not over".
While France has not ruled out support for an American-led war on Iraq, it has consistently said that this should only take place with the support of the UN Security Council and that the UN weapons inspections should be allowed to run their course.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reacted to news of the triple NATO veto by saying that the US would go ahead with its plans to reinforce Turkey's military bilaterally and without NATO support, calling the European veto "a disgrace".
The developments came against a background of tension between the United States and Britain, the US's closest European ally, over the necessity of a second UN Security Council resolution authorising the early use of force against Iraq, and disarray in France and in Europe over how to react to Washington's apparent determination to go to war with or without a second UN resolution.
In a joint news conference held with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the latter's trip to Washington on 1 February, Bush said that a second UN resolution authorising war against Iraq would be welcome, "but [resolution] 1441 gives us the authority to move without any second resolution." His comments were in contrast to those by Blair signalling that Britain would prefer the explicit support of the Security Council before any military action.
France's position has been less certain than that of its neighbour and closest European ally, Germany, which has said that it would not support war under any circumstances, with or without a Security Council resolution, leaving open the question of how France would vote were the US and Britain to seek a second Security Council resolution authorising war.
France is the only European country apart from Britain to have the right of veto at the Security Council. Public opinion in France remains solidly against a war against Iraq, with 79 per cent calling on France to veto any American resolution at the UN Security Council authorising war on Iraq, according to polls published on 30 January.
According to a poll published in Brussels, Belgium, on 29 January, of public opinion in the 15 member states of the European Union, 82 per cent would not support a war on Iraq without UN authorisation.
Up to now, France has sidestepped the question of how it would vote in the event of a second Security Council resolution. However, commentators in the French media have been stressing the consequences for Franco-American and Euro- American relations were France to vote against a US-British resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq.
For France, commented the left-wing paper Libération last week, "all the options are bad. A French veto ... would mean paralysis at the UN without preventing war. Abstention would marginalise Paris. Voting for war would make the president into a caricature, and the political cost would be enormous for him, given the overwhelming opinion in France hostile to war."
Similarly, Jean-Marie Colombani, editor of the leading French newspaper Le Monde, devoted a column last week to the question of how France should respond to "the American challenge".
"Europe's problem, and France's problem in particular," Colombani wrote, "has been what strategic doctrine Europe wants to replace the American emphasis on 'preventive war' with ... If France is too ready to oppose without proposing anything concrete, then it runs the risk not only of isolating itself, but also of feeding doubts about its own ulterior motives in doing so."
While "the way in which the American administration is setting about" solving the Iraqi crisis "is unacceptable ... and UN weapons inspections have to be allowed to run their course", Europe needed to emerge as "a power in its own right, peaceful but not pacifist, fully ready to be the partner, but not the satellite, of the United States," Colombani wrote.
The comments indicated French unease at the consequences US-led action against Iraq could have in Europe, further dividing the continent into those for and those against war. The leaders of neither France nor Germany signed an article, entitled "Europe and America must stand united" that appeared in the British newspaper The Times and other European papers on 30 January stressing Euro-American solidarity.
Appearing above the names of the leaders of eight European countries, five of which are members of the European Union, the article concluded with what appeared to be coded criticism of French and German reluctance to support Anglo- American pressure for war.
"We cannot allow a dictator to systematically violate [UN Security Council] resolutions. If they are not complied with, the Security Council will lose its credibility and world peace will suffer as a result. We are confident that the Security Council will face up to its responsibilities," the article said.
Official reaction to the article in France was that any "slide" towards war with Iraq should be resisted, an Elysée Palace spokesman saying that "the only important question is to know whether Iraq really represents a threat, and, if so, what the best way of responding to it might be. Some say war, but for us this is the least sure option, and all other options should be tried first."
