France's Dream World
By Robert Kagan
Sunday, November 3, 2002; Page B07
America, with its vast power, can sometimes seem like a bully on the world stage. But, really, the 1,200-pound gorilla is an underachiever in the bullying business. American diplomats have been tied in knots at the U.N. Security Council. It was seven weeks ago that President Bush demanded the United Nations take rapid action against Saddam Hussein. But when Colin Powell was asked last week how long he would let U.N. inspectors wander around Iraq, his answer was "months." Would that be four months, eight months or 18 months?
If you want to see a country punching far above its weight class these days, look at France. The French don't have a lot of power, but they certainly know how to make the most of what little they do have. At the Security Council, France wields a veto, thanks to Franklin Roosevelt (and FDR didn't even like the French). That lets France's diplomats go toe-to-toe with the American behemoth, to the cheers of a proud French electorate and a grateful European public. It's no surprise that the Security Council negotiations have been endless or that the French want another round of debate later. If you're France, you want these negotiations to go on forever, and then you want inspections to go on forever. When negotiations and inspections stop and fighting begins, the American global superpower goes back to being a global superpower, and France goes back to being France.
Americans shouldn't take it personally, though. It isn't all about us. France has been punching hard in Europe, too. Last week, President Jacques Chirac persuaded Germany's internationally isolated and therefore vulnerable chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, to accept a deal on Europe's ultra-protectionist Common Agricultural Policy. Actually, "bulldozed" was the term used by the Financial Times. Chirac's deal is great for heavily subsidized French farmers. It is not great for heavily taxed German taxpayers, who subsidize French farmers. And it's not great for farmers from poor and developing countries, whose plight many French diplomats claim to champion. "A sordid deal, squalidly arrived at," was the Financial Times' judgment -- but, still, marvelous for France.
When Tony Blair found out about the Chirac-Schroeder deal, he let loose with some choice words regarding countries that want "to protect their own farming industry" at the cost of "damaging" world trade and the developing world. But Chirac popped him one right back. "You have been very rude and I have never been spoken to like this before," Chirac told the British prime minister in front of all the European heads of state. Then Chirac promptly canceled a long-planned summit meeting with Blair.
Is Chirac picking on Blair because Blair has sided with the United States on Iraq? Of course. But there's more to it than that. On European Union budget matters, in relations with NATO, on all kinds of issues ranging from economics to geopolitics, Chirac and his government seem these days to have testosterone pumping through their veins. And it's no secret why. Chirac was a dead politician walking just a year ago. His victory over right-wing villain Jean-Marie Le Pen this summer, and the end of cohabitation with the imploded Socialists, put the steam back in Chirac's stride. Now he's giving both Europeans and Americans a refresher course on what Gaullism really means.
The debate over Iraq, though, has been a special godsend. Seen through French eyes, the world is suddenly a wonderful place, at least for France: There is the United States, the rogue colossus. There is Tony Blair, America's poodle. There is Schroeder, impaled -- internationally if not domestically -- upon his unilateralist, "German way" pacifism. And then there is France, tougher-minded than the Germans, prouder and more independent than the British and, because of its seat on the Security Council, the only modern, civilized power in the world able to tame and civilize the American beast. It is a mission worthy of a great country.
Who would ever want to wake from such a dream? The real world of terrorists, tyrannical aggressors and weapons of mass destruction is a much less accommodating world for France than the legalistic, one-country, one-vote world of the Security Council or the postmodern paradise of the European Union. If the United States ever does invade Iraq, the French must either stand by helplessly or take their place by America's side, and that is not nearly as enjoyable. It's more fun to play Don Quixote, tilting at American windmills. And who knows? If France can prolong the game for a few more months, as Powell suggests, Bush's chance to remove Saddam Hussein will have passed and the Iraqi leader will be safe again. What a triumph that will be for France's vision of a just international order. And then only the American people and all of Iraq's many neighbors will have to stay awake, waiting for the next catastrophe to strike.
Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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