PARIS, 18 September 2003 — George W. Bush has finally conceded what Europe has waited months to hear: The United States can’t continue to go it alone in Iraq. Bush has reached out to France and to America’s other European allies for help in the postwar reconstruction. It may seem at first glance that a rapprochement over this issue is unlikely. But while a conceptual gap over how to proceed in Baghdad may persist, let’s not overlook a new and hopeful note that has crept into the discourse on both sides.
This note is one of openness. The Americans now declare themselves, in Bush’s words, “open to suggestions.’’ I admit that the French attitude toward the American occupation of Iraq still mixes openness with caution, and that Americans may perceive that caution as defiance. But it is, in fact, simply the understandable and unavoidable product of France’s own trauma, more than 40 years ago, in Algeria. At the same time, that experience also fuels France’s new openness to Washington. We recognize, strategically, that an American defeat in Iraq would be catastrophic for the international community at large and the West in particular. We are all in the same boat, confronting the same threats. No nation understands better than France that the last thing the world needs is a new “failed state’’ that would be a haven for international terrorists at the heart of the Middle East.
The present mess in the Middle East has opened a window of opportunity for putting Franco-American relations back on a healthier footing. The war of words between the two countries has abated, even if negative stereotypes still abound on each side. And if Washington, which is now convinced that it needs the international community to win the peace in Iraq, extends a hand to Paris, we French must seize it. No one benefits if the United States fails in Iraq. A united West is key to solving the problems of the Middle East, and to peace in the international community.
The Americans see that they don’t have that many alternatives to France. A key diplomatic adviser to Bush impressed this upon me when he visited here last week. Britain, America’s favorite and closest ally, he said, can no longer deliver. The courageous but lonely Tony Blair is fighting a rear-guard battle for his own political survival. Germany is speaking like France publicly while quietly moving toward Washington, but there is ultimately little it can contribute to the US effort, either financially or militarily. Which leaves France, unique in its vocal opposition to the US policy before the war in Iraq — and alone with Britain in its neocolonial interventionist tradition.
America should not overlook this tradition. There are lessons to be taken from France’s experience in Algeria. Washington’s ambitious revisionist attempt to democratize the Middle East could benefit from the sobering humility of a former colonial power.
So, America needs France, and France wants a normalized relationship with America, and the prospects for our two nations working together again are good. Nevertheless, France’s openness should not be confused with giving the American postwar strategy, if there is one, a green light. Paris is watching the deterioration of the situation on the ground without surprise but with growing concern. Let me say that I supported the American decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein’s regime, going against the tide of my government and my countrymen. But now, I feel that what I feared is coming to pass — the United States is in danger of losing the peace. I say this not out of classic French arrogance or dissidence, but as someone who loves the United States: Iraq is not working.
The view from here is that the risks of Iraq turning into another Lebanon are growing every day. It looks as though the “foreign occupation’’ of the country encourages communitarian identity reflexes. So the Kurds are out for the Kurds, the Shiites think only of themselves, and the threat of chaos is spreading. The Iraqis who have been given authority by the Americans appear to their countrymen to be puppets, not actors.
Meanwhile, things are falling apart in Israel. In the wake of its quick military victory in Iraq, the United States believed it could impose its “road map’’ to peace on the parties in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — a conflict Paris considers closely linked to the war in Iraq. But now it appears that the disintegration of the American strategy in Iraq has led to the road map’s collapse. In fact, the entire American neoconservative belief in the “ideology of technology’’ — i.e., the belief in the use of military superiority to achieve decisive political changes in complex settings, so strongly promoted by Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon — is clearly showing its limits.
This is what the French can tell America: Military strength will take you so far and no farther. What America needs in Iraq now is not more soldiers, but policemen and administrators. Just last week, American soldiers killed eight Iraqi policemen by mistake in a desert firefight. This is the kind of act that leads to a sense of oppression and repression. And we can tell you from our experience that repression in cities creates anger, and before you know it, the liberator has become the brutal oppressor. Hegel said that men make history but do not know the history they make, and his famous warning seems to describe the consequences of American policy in Iraq perfectly. The entire region has changed, but has it changed for the better?
In Paris, the feeling is growing that it is time for the Americans to listen to their allies. And it is our role to say to them: “You are heading for a brick wall. Please change course before it is too late.’’ For a combination of cultural and political reasons, the Americans don’t know what to do in Iraq. Can they learn from the limitations and failures of Europe’s former imperial powers? Can they learn that you can’t do good to others without involving them in that effort?
That is the ultimate lesson of the Algerian war, the real lesson of the film “The Battle of Algiers,’’ which the Pentagon recently screened for its key officials in the hopes that they would learn its tactical lesson that occupying a foreign city for a long time is a recipe for disaster.
The French would say to the Americans: Forget the tactical lesson and go to the heart of the matter. Get the Iraqis involved. You may think your presence in Iraq will be indefinite but not infinite. This is wishful thinking. Unless you change your strategy, you’ll be stuck in Iraq for the long haul and forced to have a massive presence there. America should transfer authority to Iraq as quickly as possible.
That is why France wants a new UN resolution on Iraq, a new division of responsibilities and a new calendar of events. Paris would probably be happy with a triumvirate to run the reconstruction, with an American general in charge of security under a UN mandate, an Iraqi interim government given many more political responsibilities and a UN-designated representative having overall responsibility for the process and for organizing elections on a shortened schedule of a few months. Ideally, though not necessarily realistically, power should be returned to the Iraqis before the beginning of next year.
These conditions are probably unacceptable to Washington, which would see them as an admission of failure. But I would urge the Bush administration to consider them, because it may find it will have no choice in a few months.
Meanwhile, for the French, the question is this: Is Paris trying to negotiate a compromise that would allow France to participate seriously in the reconstruction of Iraq while redirecting the American course? Or are the French trying to find an elegant alibi for refusing to participate in a messy situation, for which they think the Americans, in their obstinacy, are largely responsible? If the first is true, we could well see French troops and administrators in Iraq tomorrow. But if the second is the case, then Franco-American tensions will persist. The French clearly see in the present moment an opportunity to come closer to Washington, but their appetite for getting involved in this untidy situation is not large.
I am not convinced that the French alternative would be any more successful than the American. Nevertheless, it is worth a try. I believe we French must step up to the plate and extend our assistance to Washington. One thing is absolutely clear: America did not need its allies to win the war in Iraq. But it does need them if it wants to avoid losing the peace. For both sides, the time has come for what John Foster Dulles called an “agonizing reappraisal’’ of our respective positions.
— Dominique Moisi is a senior adviser at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales in Paris and a professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw, Poland.
