French can bridge American, Muslim worlds
May 4, 2003 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
PARIS - Over the past few months, Franco-American relations have, to put it mildly, ebbed. Once negotiations at the United Nations Security Council soured, the media frenzy kicked in and soon after, no self-respecting American would wash down his freedom fries with a glass of his favorite Bordeaux.
With the war essentially over, why would the United States now want to listen to a stereotypical French whine for a central postwar role for the United Nations? Why not leave them, as author Robert Kagan puts it, to the “vital” role of “doing the dishes” after America has finished “making the dinner?”
In a phrase: France could provide credibility with and a bridge to the Muslim world.
Many Muslims worldwide had less-than-favorable reactions to Uncle Sam’s takeover of Uncle Saddam’s country. U.S.-led activity in Iraq violently stirred anti-American sentiment in the region, with many seeing it as a direct attack on Islam as a whole.
As a result, thousands of typically U.S.-friendly Egyptians along with hundreds of Algerians walked up to their Iraqi embassies during the war to volunteer in the fight against what they see as the United States’ new colonialism.
In an early March trip to Algeria, however, French President Jacques Chirac was hailed like a king.
“If there is one (Osama) bin Laden now, there will be 100 bin Ladens afterward,” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned at the height of April’s fighting. This echoed Chirac’s February theory that the war would lead to the outbreak of “Little Bin Ladens” by those who saw the United States as an unjust aggressor.
The government setup in post-war Iraq will likely have a great effect on whether these microterrorists appear.
Part of what France showed with its U.N. veto threat was a continued sensibility to Muslim opinion. Thanks to this, in a strange twist in diplomatic fate, France could now function as a buffer between the United States and Islam.
Along with strong historical links, France has continually cultivated a cultural liaison role to the Middle East and the Maghreb - the nations along the northern coast of Africa. The relationship is much like the United States and Britain’s “special relationship.”
France has also assumed a mediator’s role in the informal “five plus five” dialogues that bring foreign ministers from Mediterranean-bordering European and Maghreb countries together to discuss political and economic issues.
Journalist Nathalie Gillet covers northern Africa for the political and economic weekly magazine “Marches Tropicaux.” Gillet, who speaks Arabic and has lived in Syria for nine months and Libya for six, says there is a deep and growing anti-American sentiment due to U.S.-led actions in Iraq.
“An American in the Maghreb has every reason to feel uneasy,” Gillet continues, recounting a recent visit to Morocco. “Even if there’s no direct sympathy for the Iraqi regime, what I hear on the streets is, ‘Iraqis are Arabs like us.’”
Gillet describes an “emotional community” among Arabs who feel out of phase with their own governments. This feeling often leaves Muslims gravitating closer to their religion than their government, a dynamic which can sometimes function as a springboard toward extremism.
The French stance on Iraq has left some of these Arabs “feeling less cut off from the world,” she explains.
Also, France tends to side more with the Palestinians than Israel. That could put France in a better position than the United States to keep Yasser Arafat from walking away from the table like he did at Camp David in 2000.
France and the United States are motivated by a similar desire to help the downtrodden, says Guillaume Parmentier, who is the director of the French Center on the United States at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales and the author of “Reconcilable Differences: U.S.-French Relations in the New Era.” But, says Parmentier, the nations “end up having opposite positions. We can agree on items, but we can’t agree on a priority.”
“The French feel that throwing too much support toward Israel or attacking an Arab people or country would lead to mammoth instability in the region,” says Parmentier.
The French veto threat in the U.N. Security Council stemmed from this feeling, concludes Parmentier, adding, “France always felt that handling Iraq without looking at the larger view of the Arab world was wrong.”
Another example of the difference in approach can be seen in recent dealings with Syria. While Bush threatened sanctions from Washington, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin went to Syria as a part of a whirlwind trip to the Middle East to keep dialogue flowing with Iraq’s neighbors.
The difference between the French and American stances on the war in Iraq is due in no small part to strong and long-standing French ties with Muslim-dominated Africa and the Middle East.
With a Muslim population of more than 4 million at home, France is also sensitive to the possibility that it faces a threat from outside the country as well as within its borders. The delicate internal social balance could be thrown off by what could be seen as a betrayal of its connection with these two worlds.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., summarized European concerns in a speech at Georgetown University on January 23: “If anything, our transatlantic partners have a greater interest than we do in an economic and political transformation in the greater Middle East. They are closer to the front lines. More heavily dependent on oil imports. Prime magnets for immigrants seeking jobs. Easier to reach with missiles and just as vulnerable to terrorism.”
As the United States began handing out Iraqi reconstruction contracts to American firms, France extended an olive branch, with President Chirac calling President Bush.
Is the United States listening? It’s hard to tell. The United States has toned down its rhetoric on Syria and Secretary of State Colin Powell is planning a visit to Damascus. At the same time, Hans Blix’s offer for his U.N. inspection team to pick up where they left off on March 19 has been glossed over in favor of a 1,000 member U.S. team.
Carefully managed, the postwar reconstruction of Iraq could begin healing what journalist Gillet terms “a deep wound” the United States has inflicted on the Arab world. As much as the United States might not want to admit it, France could play a vital role.
Joe Ray is based in France. His reporting has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Boston Globe.
