WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT from an ally who disagrees with us? The question arises because of France’s strong objection to President Bush’s call for disarmament by Iraq–by war if necessary. The French reaction has infuriated many Americans, stirred talk of a boycott of French goods, and generated a spate of biting anti-French jokes. Angry Americans see France as breathtakingly ungrateful.
But this is unfair. Gratitude is not what’s required of an ally. A French retreat on Iraq would no doubt soothe American indignation. And if the French mentioned their gratitude for America’s role in saving France in both world wars, bailing out the French economy with the Marshall Plan, and giving France a seat on the United Nations Security Council with veto power, so much the better. But a grateful heart is a character trait, not a principle governing foreign affairs.
Acting in good faith, however, is required of an ally, especially a fellow democracy. France is a member of NATO (not on the military side) and a partner of the United States in the war on terrorism. And it was France and the United States who last fall jointly drafted U.N. Resolution 1441, which ordered new weapons inspections in Iraq.
Since then, France has acted in bad faith. The sole intent of Resolution 1441 was immediate disarmament, and it gave Iraq a final chance to comply or face “serious consequences,” a phrase widely understood to mean a war to depose Saddam Hussein. Now, France has changed its mind and reinterpreted the document as if it required only containment, not disarmament. French President Jacques Chirac has explained further that disarmament must be achieved peacefully, never by war. (The French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, insists France hasn’t totally ruled out the use of force, it just isn’t willing to use it for the foreseeable future.) Thus France would let Saddam off the hook. In refusing to disarm, Saddam would no longer have to worry about serious consequences.
An ally should also respect the national security of a friendly nation, as defined by the friend, unless it clashes with the ally’s own security. Clearly, war with Iraq and the ouster of Saddam would not threaten the security of France. Those outcomes might harm French commercial interests in Iraq in the short term, but that’s a different matter. France could easily protect those interests by simply not challenging the United States and then negotiating to save some or all of its stake in Iraq.
And of course it’s no secret to the French that the attacks of September 11 led Americans to regard terrorism as a national security threat to their homeland. The Bush administration realized as well that the threat was all the more grave because terrorists might gain access to weapons of mass destruction from an enemy who possesses them, Saddam. Terrorists could penetrate America’s border and provide Saddam what he lacked–a delivery vehicle for his weapons. And for terrorists, Saddam could provide funds and sanctuary in addition to chemical, biological, or radiological weapons.
Sadly, France has been unwilling to accept America’s fear of terrorists with WMDs as legitimate enough to mandate French acquiescence at the United Nations. Instead, the French have relentlessly countered American efforts to gain multilateral backing at the U.N. for imposing Resolution 1441’s serious consequences on Saddam and his regime.
As an ally, France could have been expected to voice its doubts about American policy, then graciously step back and abstain in a Security Council vote. But France has chosen to undermine the United States. Rather than increase pressure on Saddam to disarm, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin focused last Friday on refuting every American claim about the threat posed by Iraq. Then he hop-scotched across west Africa to seek the votes of Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea against the American-British deadline for Iraqi disarmament. Ambassador Levitte says Iraq simply isn’t an “imminent threat.”
French President Jacques Chirac has committed his country to a final hostile act. Last Monday he said that a majority vote in favor of the British-American plan to set a deadline for Saddam to complete the disarmament of Iraq will not stand. France will veto it, using the gift given the beleaguered French at the U.N.’s founding to make them feel like an important nation.
Lastly, it’s the obligation of an ally not to blow up its relationship with a long-time friend if at all possible. On Iraq, maintaining the French-American tie is quite possible. The problem is France doesn’t seem interested, though Levitte says the French-American tie is critical to France. If so, France might have outlined its opposition to U.S. policy in a closed-door session of the Security Council. On the contrary, France brushed aside an American request and insisted last Friday’s session be held in public, thus on worldwide television.
The French answer to American criticism is that their opposition is not based on anti-Americanism but on sincere differences. They are wary of using military force, fearful a war with Iraq and regime change will create instability in the Middle East, and dubious of American plans to install democracy in Iraq. So the differences between the United States and France turn out to be philosophical and deep. With the gulf this wide, it may simply be a mistake to think of the French as the ally they once were.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
