A New Poodle
and a New War?
By Dr. Muqtedar Khan
University of Delaware
US
After
Tony Blair’s retirement as Washington ’s
poodle and Dan Brown’s stodgy refusal to
fill in the vacancy it appears that Nicolas Sarkozy,
the new President of France, has volunteered for
the job. Given the opposition to US foreign policy,
particularly towards Iraq by former French President
Jacque Chirac and former Foreign Minister Dominique
le Villepin, one cannot blame Washington if it
might have initially shown some hesitancy towards
Sarkozy’s application.
But Sarkozy is a man capable of vision and initiative.
He has seen a glorious future for himself as “the
new poodle” and has gone after the job with
great enthusiasm. He has embarked on a mission
to convince Washington DC that France has not
only a new President, but a new moral conscience.
He is sending loud signals that France ’s
new ethical posture is ready to align and or subordinate
France ’s foreign policy to the most neo-conservative
of Washington ’s many predilections.
As soon as Sarkozy became President, he sent his
foreign minister Bernard Kouchner to Baghdad to
express support for US presence there. This was
a gesture that surprised both Americans and Europeans.
This was his first confidence building measure.
He has since upped the ante by banging on the
war drums against Iran with abandon. He has described
Iran ’s nuclear enrichment program as the
crisis of our times and insists that a nuclear
Iran is unacceptable. If Iran does not give up
the bomb then it will be bombed, he declared.
Washington is no doubt pleased with this unexpected
bonanza. Now they have added leverage inside EU
and can pressure it more easily to follow its
lead. With France tamed it will become increasingly
difficult for China and Russia to stand up to
the US demands that the security council levy
more sanctions against Iran. More importantly,
if the poodle wannabe is willing to echo Washington
’s preference with vehemence in EU and other
international fora, President Bush’s problematic
foreign ventures may gain more legitimacy.
But this is early days. Anti-Americanism runs
deep in France and the American contempt for France
is not hidden in Washington. Former Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld had dismissed France ’s international
relevance with an offhand comment about “old
Europe ” and I have heard many senior officials
refer to it as a Third World country with nuclear
weapons. If Sarkozy, who is already being perceived
as unpredictable and capricious, finds his overtures
towards America affecting his approval ratings,
he may suddenly decide change his approach to
world politics.
Tony Blair, the original poodle, subordinated
Britain’s interests and wisdom to Washington’s
ambitions and whims in the fond hope that someday
he and Britain would have influence on American
foreign policy. But the general consensus in Britain
today is that he failed. He was used by Washington.
He took Britain to war in Iraq which has neither
made Britain safer nor Iraq a model democracy.
By the time he resigned, one of Britain ’s
most talented and charismatic Prime Minister had
become one of its most despised of leaders. There
is a lesson here for Sarkozy.
As far as Iran ’s nuclear ambition is concerned
there are many issues here. First by all accounts,
including the CIA’s, it is many years away
from nuclear weapons capability and the threat
is not as imminent as Sarkozy makes it out to
be. Second, both former President Jacque Chirac
of France and General Abizaid of the US have argued
that an Iran with two or three nuclear weapons
is not a threat to the US or Israel and can be
deterred by the thousands of nuclear weapons stockpiled
by the US and hundreds possessed by Israel.
Most security experts argue that a nuclear Iran
will not be a real threat. Yes, nuclear weapons
may give it immunity from invasion and occupation
such as that suffered by Iraq, but it will not
give it decisive offensive capabilities. As far
as threats to Israel are concerned, we must not
forget that it is a state with a more powerful
air force than Britain and a secret nuclear arsenal
estimated to be next only to the US and Russia.
It is also about to receive $30 billion dollars
of US armament.
I doubt if France alone is capable of bombing
Iran. France has not won a war on its own in over
100 years. The French bravado and the war mongering
of its new leaders, is premised on the assumption
that while the French will shoot their mouths,
the real shooting will be dome by the US. The
French are actually risking the lives of thousands
American soldiers stationed in Iraq and in the
line of Iranian retaliatory fire, just to look
tough. Fortunately Sarkozy and his foreign minister
stand alone in their eagerness for another invasion
by the West on a Muslim country. Even in America
nobody except Senator Lieberman is eager to bomb
Iran.
Finally France ’s own nuclear record is
quite shameful. It is estimated that France has
an estimated stockpile of 350 nuclear weapons.
It has conducted over 200 nuclear tests, polluting
and poisoning our planet, and has a very dubious
history of nuclear proliferation. It is suspected
of clandestinely proliferating nuclear weapons
technology to Israel. France is also in violation
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s
[NPT] article VI which requires France to work
in good faith towards complete nuclear disarmament.
Washington has a new poodle for sure; I just hope
that we do not have a new war.
(Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Associate Professor at the
University of Delaware and a Senior Nonresident
Fellow with the Saban Center at the Brookings
Institution)
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