Article

2003-05-23 Europe

Forget Powellâs tour de France, rapprochement is not a word Bush wants to hear

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Posted by Omer Ishmail 2003-05-23 04:47 am|| || Front Page|| [9 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "French noisily claim is the Administrationâs policy of leaking anti-French stories to the press."
Leaking not fabrications,must be something to the stories.
I would like to see an alliance of our real allies,set-up right next door to U.N.headquaters.Rub the U.N.s nose in it's perfidity.

Posted by Raptor 2003-05-23 06:49:44|| 2003-05-23 06:49:44|| Front Page Top

#2 Shouldn't proper blog etiquette require that the poster provide attribution to the author of the article? It was Irwin Stelzer's OpEd piece in the Times of London today, in case anyone wants to know. Of course the real "revenge" by Bush has been the weakening of the dollar and doing nothing to stop it. Believe me, in a few months Europe will be worse than Japan economically while they snicker today they will be jumping off the Eiffel Tower in September.

Posted by Jack is Back! 2003-05-23 07:14:10|| 2003-05-23 07:14:10|| Front Page Top

#3 What still has me scratching my head is, how did the French manage to misjudge our intentions so badly during the diplomatic wrangling that led up to the Iraq war?

What was it? Did they seriously believe their attempts at obstruction would not have any consequences? Did they really think we would be afraid to act without UN blessing? Bush certainly made his position clear when he went before the UN on September 12 of last year: the UN will either enforce its resolutions on Iraq, or the US will henceforth consider the UN to be irrelevant. Did the French think he was bluffing?

Whatever, one thing is certain: the notion that the French are "masters of diplomacy" is about as dead as the idea that Saddam's Republican Guard were "elite".

Posted by Dave D. 2003-05-23 07:25:50|| 2003-05-23 07:25:50|| Front Page Top

#4 The French haven't been the masters of diplomacy in at least a century.

I'm not completely sure what "mastery of diplomacy" would look like, but it seems to me that it doesn't look very much like having your capitol occupied by someone who surrendered to you just 22 years before.

Posted by Dishman 2003-05-23 08:06:34|| 2003-05-23 08:06:34|| Front Page Top

#5 Jack - good question on whether to list the article's author or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes not, but it's always available by linking to the original article. Thoughts anyone?

Posted by Frank G 2003-05-23 09:02:39|| 2003-05-23 09:02:39|| Front Page Top

#6 What still has me scratching my head is, how did the French manage to misjudge our intentions so badly during the diplomatic wrangling that led up to the Iraq war?

That's exactly what I'd like to know. What the hell were they thinking?!?!

Posted by g wiz 2003-05-23 09:04:27|| 2003-05-23 09:04:27|| Front Page Top

#7 DD - either 1. They thought saddam would cooperate more than he did, which would have made it much more difficult for the US to act without the UN. When Saddam played differently (and less rationally) then they expected, it was too late to back down
2. They thought Blair was more vulnerable than he turned out to be 2b - they didnt expect Blair to get the support from the eastern europeans that he did. Again, once it became clear, it was too late to change.
3. They didnt expect the war to go as smoothly as it did - and expected the US to get bogged down - probably because they misjudged the iraqi regime and people, and the state of the "arab street"
4. They didnt care, they were playing domestic politics.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-05-23 09:06:32|| 2003-05-23 09:06:32|| Front Page Top

#8 Dave D. The French were used to dealing with former SecState Alldull and Bubba. They didn't know how to act with a real leader like Bush.

Posted by Denny 2003-05-23 09:34:27|| [www.grouchyoldcripple.com] 2003-05-23 09:34:27|| Front Page Top

#9 LH: Those are all plausible and sound likely- taken together, they suggest that France is operating from some kind of "non-reality-based realpolitik". Kind of disturbing because it raises the question, what else could the French do that would be REALLY stupid?

Posted by Dave D. 2003-05-23 10:18:43|| 2003-05-23 10:18:43|| Front Page Top

#10 Liberalhawk: You stole my thunder, but let's do some probablity. I think #4 takes the cake. Leftists in France voted en masse (while holding their noses) for Chirac last year. Lesser of 2 evils to the max as they didn't want to have Le Pen in power. How to make them love him? Stand up to Oncle Sam, bien sur. Now the rats are scattering from the ship as seen in last week's public workers strikes over cuts in retirement benefits. Great planning Jacques!

Next has to be #2 as they figured Labor backbenchers would be able to force Tony to back off on his determination to take out Baathists. French strategists figured pressure from demos/Claire Short/Red Livingstone crowd would do job for them. WRONG!!!

As for #1 and #3, Chirac probably relies on his drinking pal, Hariri of Lebanon and also Assad Boy for advice in these domains. What advice! BTW, caught about 5 min. this morning of da vile pin's opening statement at G8 and French are definitely insecure and so willing to do anything to get back into good graces of Powell. You can be sure they're trying to butter up friends at State. So Colin: Remember what you've said re French on Charlie Rose. No going back. French must understand this is a different world now.

Posted by Michael 2003-05-23 11:21:52|| 2003-05-23 11:21:52|| Front Page Top

#11 Dan D: I think that you hit it on the nose about the non-reality based realpolitik. Someone wrote a good piece a few months ago analyzing French policy and strategy errors going back to the Maginot Line. I would go even further -- back to to the Panama Canal -- where the French killed off a generation of their best engineers and Plan 17, their disasterous operational plan for counterattacking a German invasion in 1914. The bottom line is that the French have not been conducting a realistic foreign/military/economic (fill in the blank) policy in many, many years -- perhaps in over a century. My personal belief is that the French inability to compete globally is due to the very authoritarian nature of their culture (see Geert Hofstede's writings, particularly his idea of power distance). The most obvious manifestation of this is the French cult of the Gran Ecoles. Only the graduates of these institutions are deemed qualified to be leaders in their field. Upward mobility is thus impossible. Dissent is effectively quashed.

Posted by 11A5S 2003-05-23 12:24:07|| 2003-05-23 12:24:07|| Front Page Top

#12 BTW, that should be Grand Ecoles... mixing my Spanish with French again.

Here is a good link about the Grand Ecoles from an Indian perspective. The author draws some very flawed conclusions, but his lack of Yankee revulsion at such a system brings out some perspectives that you would not find in the US press.

Posted by 11A5S 2003-05-23 12:56:47|| 2003-05-23 12:56:47|| Front Page Top

#13 In France, the left (socialists and communists), the right (Le Pen's supporters), the center (Gaulists), and the Muslim immigrants have only one thing in common: they all hate the US. Anti-Americanism is the glue that holds the country together.

Posted by closet neo-con 2003-05-23 13:09:10|| 2003-05-23 13:09:10|| Front Page Top

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