In the shadow of a mad world

France in 2003 seems nothing like France in 2006. The path from then to now runs through Damascus, writes Hassan Nafaa*

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The state of the world today, and the Middle East with its fierce, intertwined issues right at the very heart of the globe, resembles a soaring volcano from whose peak a snowball of fire is rolling.

The crisis in Palestine is escalating rapidly, especially since Hamas has been charged with forming a government. In Lebanon, a crisis no less serious is also escalating at high speed. In Syria, the crisis appears as though it has approached the point of boiling. Yet it can be said that the crisis in Iran has become the mother of all crises in the region, particularly since its nuclear programme has become the pretext some consider fit for another regional war.

In the background of this smouldering arena, the curtain has opened on a strange scene in which caricatures making fun of the Prophet Mohamed take the stage after being published in an extremist right-wing newspaper called Jyllands-Posten. Four months after these drawings were published, fury suddenly flared up throughout the Islamic world. The wave of anger then passed through the Islamic minorities in the rest of the world's capitals, particularly the West, detonating a major global crisis that until the time of writing remains out of control.

At first it seemed that the caricature incident was the output of individual ignorance and unintended, just as it initially seemed that the responses it invoked were merely natural outbursts of anger at Muslims being degraded through the disgracing of what they hold sacred. Yet when Western newspapers began to pursue the roots of the issue it became clear that the incident was not as innocent as it first appeared.

Several respectable Western newspapers published documented facts stating that the culture editor of the Danish newspaper and the person directly responsible for the publication of the pernicious drawings, Fleming Rose, is a close friend of Daniel Pipes, the American right-wing conservative well known for his extremism and animosity towards anything Arab or Islamic. These newspapers affirmed that Rose had met Pipes in Philadelphia a few months before the drawings appeared, or perhaps because of them, and conducted a long interview with him that his newspaper published. In the interview, Pipes attacked Islam and described it as a "totalitarian ideology inimical to democracy and a picture copy of Nazi and fascist ideologies". With such documented information, one cannot rule out the American conservative right being involved, or the assumption that it played an inciting role with the aim of pushing towards a purposeful clash of civilisations, particularly given that this American right blindly supports Israel. But does this mean that we have begun to lean towards simplified interpretations that rest upon conspiracy theories? Of course not.

Dealing with incidents as though they are unique and express separate and unconnected phenomena carries a great deal of naiveté. It is a mistake to ignore a group of facts that are quite significant in terms of their ability to clarify the import of what has taken place. These facts are: first, the American conservative right has a universal project with comprehensive ideological and intellectual components and departures that precede the events of September 2001. Second, Islamic fundamentalism, upon whose hierarchical pyramid sits Al-Qaeda, has its own universal project that it is striving to promote through a bold, long-term programme. Third, the events of September 2001 became the occasion that both US President George W Bush and Osama Bin Laden attempted to employ to tighten their grip on their "natural camps" in preparation for a decisive showdown. Fourth, most of the current global and regional developments, and particularly those related to the Middle East, are naught but the harvest of the interactions resulting from the clash or intersection of these two projects.

Reflecting on the reality of these interactions undoubtedly facilitates the discovery that they are, most unfortunately, gradually moving in the direction of forming a new kind of polarisation between two camps. One is Western and driven by the follies of Bin Laden which complement the policies of the American right and opened the path to handing over its leadership to a man like Bush. The other is Eastern-Islamic and is driven by the crimes of Bush (in Iraq, Palestine, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) to a growing belief in the saying that "iron is only blunted by iron," encouraged to continue on a path that leads it to submit its leadership to a man like Bin Laden.

It appears that the transformation that has come over French foreign policy of late is moving in the same direction and turns France into a mere tool that functions like a warhead in the strategy of "constructive chaos" that Bush has been energetically striving to apply since inaugurating a second presidential term. It can be said that those who were betting on the same French-German alliance that opposed the illegitimate war on Iraq, and who viewed it as a core that could be built upon to reform the unipolar world order, have been disappointed. It has now become clear that winds have brought what the captains don't want. Most of international and regional powers appear as though they are moving forward blindfolded, consciously or not, in the direction that Bush and Bin Laden determine, for they are but two faces to one coin.

The fact is that the French-American rapprochement is not new. It is likely that it began in November 2003 following a secret and unsuccessful visit to Damascus by Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, adviser to French President Jacques Chirac. If the information is correct, published in an article by David Ignatius in The Washington Post 5 February 2006, we are not merely facing rapprochement between two major countries but rather a strategic alliance of extraordinary import and consequence. Following the unsuccessful visit referred to above, Washington and Paris began immediate and serious attempts to explore the horizons of cooperation through secret communications between the French adviser and Stephen Hadley, assistant to the American president for national security affairs. The article indicates that secret meetings between the two men took place beginning in August 2004 and were repeated regularly every five or six weeks. In addition, telephone conversations were held between the two on a near daily basis.

During his secret visit to Damascus in November 2003, Gourdault-Montagne said to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad that what concerned him was that global and regional givens had changed following America's creation of new facts on Iraqi ground, and that it had therefore become necessary for Syria to change as well. He suggested to Al-Assad that he show good intentions by visiting Jerusalem or taking a similarly bold step that would prove a new launch pad for a settlement to the Arab-Israeli struggle. When President Al-Assad asked him if he was now speaking on behalf of the Americans, he replied that this was not only the opinion of Bush but also that of Chirac, Putin and Schroeder. The French envoy well realised that he was asking the impossible from Al-Assad, and that a step like that would be suicide.

Yet the Syrian refusal was a French requirement to justify rapprochement to the American position. And it was here that Al-Assad sensed the danger directed at Syria and Lebanon. Fear drove him to obstinately extend the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, which was a strategic mistake. This position gave France additional justification to throw itself deeper into the arms of the United States, and coordination began that resulted in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which was the start to the entire situation in Lebanon exploding. Hadn't it been for this resolution, former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri would not have been killed. It would have been more appropriate for Syria to have realised on its own that circumstances had changed and that developments within international and regional positions required that it open up to independent Lebanese powers that would allow an organised and gradual withdrawal in the context of preserving its security and strategic interests. Instead, the killing of Al-Hariri ironically granted the United States a golden opportunity to lead, rather than France, as had been previously planned, the transformations in Lebanon in the period following.

It is clear that France has reached the point of no return in its alliance with the United States. Particularly following the arrival of the German right to power, France has no option but to strengthen this alliance, which is clearly what is happening with regard to the Iranian nuclear programme crisis. Statements of the French foreign minister about France's readiness to use all available means, including nuclear arms, against states and powers supporting terrorism, seem as though they were issued by a France other than that with which the region is accustomed.

The greatest beneficiary of this alliance is the American extreme right, which is manoeuvred by Israel. The continued discrepancies between the American and French positions on a limited number of issues in the region, such as the position on Hamas for example, is nothing but a speck of sand in Arab-Islamic eyes. The danger of this alliance, particularly if the Iranian crisis escalates to the point of threatening to blow up the region, is that it places the entire Islamic world before a difficult choice. This is what Bush and Bin Laden want to facilitate the leadership of their respective natural camps. But is this really what Chirac wants? Doesn't he realise that relations between the Islamic world and the West will not improve as long as there remains no comprehensive solution to the Palestinian cause? Will Chirac expand employment of his new alliance in the interest of a just settlement of this chronic issue, or has he become prepared to sacrifice DeGaullist France's capital in the region in return for a mirage? This is the true test that Chirac will face in the coming critical months.

* The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University.