FRANCE:The new French president has been carrying out a thoroughgoing revolution in French foreign policy, write Lara Marlowein Paris
President Nicolas Sarkozy's reference this week to "a disastrous alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran" was exceptional even by his standards of hyperbole. Commentators and diplomats continue to debate his meaning.
"President Sarkozy deliberately set out two extremes, to show that neither of these extremes are situations we can allow to happen," Craig Stapleton, the US ambassador to Paris, said yesterday, explaining his own interpretation of Mr Sarkozy's August 27th speech to French ambassadors.
Mr Stapleton refused to be drawn on the biggest question raised by the French president's statement: if the US decides to use force against Iran, will France support it, or even participate? Though President Jacques Chirac also adopted a hard line against Iran's uranium enrichment programme, speculation about French support for a military strike was inconceivable under his rule.
According to Le Monde, Mr Sarkozy has made another significant departure from Mr Chirac's policies by deciding in principle to support sanctions against Iran outside the UN framework. The UN Security Council has already voted two sets of sanctions, but the US wants more. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice reportedly suggested the measure to Mr Sarkozy in Paris at the end of June.
On August 21st, the International Atomic Energy Agency agreed with Iran on an "action plan" that requires the Islamic Republic to respond to a number of questions between now and November. The US, France and Britain dislike the plan, in part because Russia is using it as a pretext for opposing further sanctions.
"The good news is that the sanctions are working," Mr Stapleton said. "The evidence is that tightening the noose has been effective. There is high unemployment in Iran, long gas lines. The Iranians are feeling the pain." Mr Sarkozy's adherence to the US line on Iran is symbolic of a profound realignment in French foreign policy, though the sheer number of his initiatives sometimes obscures underlying substance.
This week, for example, Mr Sarkozy proposed that the EU create a "committee of wise men" to contemplate the Union's future. He promised to organise the first summit of his "Mediterranean Union" in early 2008, took up Mr Chirac's advocacy of giving Germany, Japan, India and Brazil permanent seats on the UN Security Council and added his own proposal to add China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa to the G8, making it the G13. He also announced that he would personally chair a Security Council meeting on Africa on September 25th.
At a time when moderate, pro-European Islamists have consolidated power in Turkey, Mr Sarkozy made a deft climbdown on his earlier opposition to accession negotiations by proposing the "committee of wise men". If Europe accepts the need to discuss future borders, there will be no showdown over Turkey at the EU summit in December. Mr Sarkozy says he'll let the EU proceed on 30 of 35 negotiation chapters. Five which would imply full EU membership would be shelved for the time being.
This flurry of diplomatic activity conceals the biggest shift in French foreign policy since Gen Charles de Gaulle left Nato's integrated command in 1966. "What is new is that France no longer positions herself as a rival of the United States," said Le Figaro. "She doesn't let herself be locked into a role that should not be hers, as a rallying point for all those who oppose America."
While Mr Chirac enrolled Chinese, Russian and German support against the invasion of Iraq, Mr Sarkozy's France is seen by Washington as a useful adjunct. "We have never asked France to be 'aligned' with the United States," Mr Stapleton said. "Our interests are best 'aligned' when we use the diplomatic skills of France and its importance in the world."
Citing Iran, Lebanon, Darfur and the "fight against terrorism", the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, said in Paris this summer: "On those four issues, we have no better ally than France." The new Franco-American harmony is most striking regarding Israel. "I have the reputation of being a friend of Israel and so I am," Mr Sarkozy told French ambassadors this week. "I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security."
Though the Sarkozy administration officially considers the US invasion of Iraq to have been a mistake, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has asked what France can do to help, and visited Baghdad last month (August). Mr Kouchner's criticism of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki echoed remarks by President Bush.
During his election campaign, Mr Sarkozy implied he would reduce French participation in the Nato force in Afghanistan. The Taliban held two French hostages at the time.
In Paris in June, Mr Burns, the second-ranking official in the State Department, pleaded for help. "Nato needs reinforcements," he said. "Nato needs more troops. Nato needs more helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Nato needs more trainers to help the Afghan national army... This has to be a joint enterprise of France and the US."
Mr Sarkozy heard the call. He is sending another 150 French trainers to Afghanistan, and is transferring six French fighter-bombers from Tajikistan to the US base in Kandahar. There is even talk of France rejoining Nato's integrated military command. "If Mr Sarkozy wants to show his desire to bring France and the US closer together, returning to the heart of Nato's integrated military structure is the appropriate way," Le Monde said.
This Franco-American honeymoon follows a long tradition of French politicians tapping into a vein of anti-Americanism. Opposition to Washington seems to unite the French, in much the same way that Brussels-bashing unites Britain. So far, old-time Gaullists and the left have been silent, but if Mr Sarkozy makes a dramatic move such as reintegrating the Nato command, there could be a backlash.
Gen de Gaulle's defence doctrine officially considered the US a threat on a par with the Soviet Union. He must be turning in his grave. The often rocky history of Franco-US relations is being rewritten. Mr Burns praised de Gaulle for his "courageous leadership" and said the general had continued "to bind (France) in alliance with the US".