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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (141)	9/2/2002 10:20:21 PM
From: JEB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8683

Europe and Iraq Even the French aren't as opposed as advertised. Saturday, August 31, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT It has been said--over and over--that Europeans won't support a U.S. effort to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. The reality is more politically complicated, and more hopeful for any U.S. plans. The British Foreign Office issued a statement yesterday--reinforced by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on the BBC--announcing that the Labour government was considering a recommendation of a Select Committee of the Commons to give Saddam a deadline to accept weapons inspectors. This was played up by the media as yet another difference between the U.S. and U.K. A more accurate reading, our reporting tells us, is that Prime Minister Tony Blair is trying to find a way to circumvent opposition among left-wing backbenchers, and also to gin up support among the public, by showing that Saddam has been given a fair chance to mend his ways. If he continues to balk at inspections, it will be very difficult for even left-wing dailies like the Guardian to make a case for forbearance. (Not long after Mr. Straw spoke, Iraq said there was no point in tolerating inspectors again. "What purpose would there be for a goodwill gesture or an initiative for the return of spies?" Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told reporters in Damascus.) Steven Everts, an analyst with a London think tank close to New Labour, believes this approach "would dramatically increase the level of support" for a war on Iraq. Tory analysts concur that Mr. Blair is trying to sell the Iraq action to his people, the backbenchers and even to skeptics in his own cabinet. In other words, Mr. Blair is not distancing himself from the White House; to the contrary, he's doing what a clever politician does and preparing his coalition for a probable war. Americans have long counted on British support; French backing is another story. Memories die hard from the recent five years when the left ran the government; Socialist Hubert Vedrine, who relished calling Americans "simplistic," was foreign minister. But a very different team is running France now. Dominique de Villepin is Mr. Vedrine's successor at the Quai d'Orsay, and he's lately been sounding more like de Gaulle, if not yet like Donald Rumsfeld. Here is what he told an annual meeting of ambassadors in Paris this week: "Iraq defies international rules set by the Security Council, holds its people hostage and threatens security, particularly that of its neighbors. Such behavior is not acceptable. We Europeans know too well the price of weakness in the face of dictatorship if we close our eyes and play a passive game." President Jacques Chirac did say yesterday that the U.S. should ask for U.N. permission before it ousts Saddam. But it's hard to know if this is a serious objection or pro forma multilateralism. The Bush Administration is appropriately leery of handing the five permanent members of the Security Council a veto on such a crucial matter, even though it would make life politically simpler for Messrs. Blair and Chirac. And on the legal point, Saddam is already violating existing U.N. resolutions. France can be prickly, in Henry Kissinger's famous phrase, but the country is also aware of its national interest. If the U.S. bids to create a new order in the Middle East, Paris knows it cannot afford to sit on the sidelines griping that it might all turn out badly. France's recent shift to the right has been occurring across the Continent. German Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder is trying to keep his center-left coalition together through an election this September, which explains his broadside against Vice President Dick Cheney's recent Iraq speech. But he still trails in the polls, and he was rebuked in a televised debate by challenger Edmund Stoiber, who said it was "irresponsible to dismiss theoretical options and take pressure from Saddam Hussein." There's no doubt that Europeans are warier than Americans are of deposing Saddam, in part because they aren't likely to be the targets of whatever terror weapons he obtains. But they also know that America is the ultimate guarantor of their security, much as it has been for 100 years. If the U.S. decides that deposing Saddam is essential to its security, we doubt Europe will stand in the way. opinionjournal.com