LONDON, 19 October 2003 — Dominique de Villepin is a passionate man. He looks his questioner in the eye. His gaze rarely falters. Even while sitting his arms and shoulders rise, move and shift constantly, as if keeping rhythm with the practiced drama of his ideas. And ideas are not in short supply. They tumble forth across the table, as sweeping as his mane of graying hair, as forceful and engaging as the man himself.
De Villepin may be a career diplomat, just another face in a suit on the international circuit. He may be France’s foreign minister, the guardian of his country’s foreign policy and the well-schooled, advocate of its national and global interest. But there is nothing of the mandarin or policy wonk about him. To unstarry English eyes, he is that most terrible of things: an enthusiast. It is ideas that drive him.
In the course of an interview with the Guardian newspaper during a brief visit to London this week, he speaks repeatedly of the need for “imagination”, “energy”, “unity”, “lucidity” and “responsibility” in international affairs. His vision is of a global community of countries, peoples, cultures and religions that treat each other with justice, equality and respect.
Like France these days, De Villepin is, in many ways, an exception to the political norm. The views he promotes, central to the French effort for a collaborative, multipolar rather than didactic, unipolar (American-run) world, may seem idealistic and impractical, even subversive. But they are espoused with the same style, verve and persuasive conviction which made him the star and villain of last winter’s United Nations Security Council showdown on Iraq.
For the Bush administration, he became a bete noire. Not just a critic who was easily dismissed or ignored, he was a man with an alternative strategy and the ability to express it. As a result he was portrayed as the foppish symbol of “old Europe’s” obstructionism and appeasement, a focal point for the startling surge in US public hostility to all things French which has yet to subside totally.
For the millions who opposed the war, De Villepin became, briefly, an unlikely spokesman and champion as he confronted the ponderous US secretary of state, Colin Powell, and Britain’s forensic foreign secretary, Jack Straw, across the Security Council chamber. When the UN process imploded, it was not because De Villepin had lost the argument. It was because the US and Britain had lost patience and run out of time. The government-led backlash against France in Britain was fearsome, too, for a while.
De Villepin does not care to dwell on that almighty rupture now. He seeks, he says, to work cooperatively with the US in the Middle East and beyond, not in rivalry to it, let alone against it. He insists, after lunch with Straw, that Britain and France see eye to eye on most important issues, such as the Middle East peace process, the Balkans and the international criminal court. He is adamant that, far from wishing for failure (as some rightwing British and US media claimed), the successful reconstruction of a democratic, sovereign postwar Iraq is an urgent priority for France.
But this evident desire to repair the diplomatic damage and to emphasize common goals cannot disguise the points of difference, both practical and philosophical, in the overall outlook adopted by De Villepin and his patron, the French president, Jacques Chirac. Day- to-day presentation may have changed but the analysis has not — for example, on the explosive, contemporary question of military intervention.
“Regime change cannot be a policy on its own in today’s world,” he says bluntly. “You have to be respectful of sovereignty. Of course there are sometimes very difficult situations when human rights are concerned, when the humanitarian situation is concerned. We have known that in Kosovo, so in rare situations, we have to address these kinds of problems by military means. But you have to have the support of the international community. You need to have at a certain point the support of the UN. So this is a matter of unity. If there is one country that imagines it can just solve this mater just alone, we are going to see more vengeance, more difficulties, more problems, and the world is going to be more unstable.”
Asked if he could envisage a situation in which France might support military intervention against Iran to curb its alleged nuclear ambitions, he is equally forthright. “You don’t speak about military action just like that,” he says. “I must say we have enough problems with Iraq not to open a new front in Iran. This would be absolutely ridiculous. ... My conviction and my belief is that if we imagine we are going to address this situation by force, we are totally mistaken.” Instead, De Villepin says, European countries should work together with Russia and the US to make it plain to Tehran that it must satisfy the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the requirements of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to which it is a signatory. He notes that Britain, France and Germany have been in regular contact with Iran’s Foreign Ministry concerning the vexed question of the “additional protocol” to the treaty Tehran is being pressed to sign, and that European cooperation on this question has been “exemplary”. He does not, however, include the Bush administration in this accolade.
Returning to his baseline theme, he says understanding and respect are required in dealing with Iran. “I don’t see why we should not be able to find the right solution. We have to recognize that some of these countries are armed for security reasons, we have to address their concern, and we have to stand firm. We think Iran should respect its international obligations. We also need to have a dialogue.”
Approaching international conflicts and disputes solely from a security perspective is always going to be problematic, he says. “I think that Israeli policy during the past months and years shows clearly that if you are going to imagine that only (through) security you are going to find solutions, you are mistaken. You are going to find yourself in an impasse. Of course every country has a need to address security. It is the first responsibility that everyone owes to its citizens. But security alone is not enough. You need to have a political perspective, you need to have a project of peace. That is what is lacking in the Middle East today. I must say at the Beirut summit we saw an important strong change. All the Arab countries were ready to recognize Israel. This is a major change in the region. And we, the Europeans, have to be part of this.”
Nor does the European Union lack leverage in mediating the Palestinian-Israeli dispute and this influence should be recognized, he suggests, by both the Bush administration and Israel. “We are the first economic partner of Israel. Europe is first in giving cooperation and aid to the Palestinians. We must be part of the definition of peace. America cannot do the job alone.”
Although France finally supported a new Anglo-American UN resolution on Iraq this week which went some way to meeting Paris’s concerns about the reassertion of Iraqi sovereignty and the UN’s role, De Villepin indicated that he was far from convinced that these fundamental issues have been resolved. He was noncommittal about what France might offer by way of bilateral reconstruction aid at next week’s donors’ conference in Madrid. The expectation is that it will contribute no fresh cash.
“I think that the conditions for having real progress on the reconstruction of Iraq are not complied (with) today. Reconstruction needs to have a partner, you need to have a real sovereignty in Iraq if you want the Iraqi people working with you.
“The problem today is that most Iraqi people are just sitting and looking at what’s going on without being part of the venture. We need to have them on board. And this is one of the very big problems that, historically, we all have to face. What we know, as countries that have gone through decolonization, is that you always make the decisions late, too late. You always think that the people are not ready. You always think you have to wait ... and then it’s too late.”
The international community missed a golden opportunity immediately after the war ended to unite in backing the reconstruction process. Now a second opportunity has arisen, he says, which means putting Iraqis at the center of the reconstruction of their country. But there is a danger that this chance, too, will be squandered, given the approach attributed to Paul Bremer, the US chief administrator (whom he does not mention by name). “It is a worry for us that some people in Iraq are doubting the capacity of the Iraqis themselves, about having the legitimacy to take their destiny in charge.” This, he seems to think, risks repeating the mistakes made in the dog days of the British and French empires.
As a diplomat who has lived and worked in Washington, he says he understands how great was the shock administered to Americans and their political leaders by the Sept. 11 attacks. For him, this outrage was a manifestation of a broader, global challenge — the emergence of a different world, following the collapse of communism, in which dangerous new energies and threatening international forces have been set loose.
Taking the place of the old Cold War power blocs, these forces potentially set the West against the East, Christianity against Islam, North against South, he says. He likens this instability to a kind of global “vertigo”.
“That’s where maybe the difference of vision exists between the US and us. The fact today is that power is not only the traditional, the classic power that we used to know in the 19th and 20th centuries, which is technology, economic, military power. We believe that there is a new factor of power ... which is what some people call soft power, or immaterial power and the bottom line of this new power is identity, the respect of culture, the factor of religion, the factors that are deep-rooted in societies. If you don’t take that into account, then you have the phenomenon that we see today which is a very important allergy toward classical power. If you are going to use the stick, if you are going to use military power without taking into account this sensitivity or culture, then you have the opposite reaction. You have some kind of rebellion.
“We should be more careful in taking into account these new elements because if we don’t, the world is going to be more and more dangerous. That is exactly what is happening in Iraq, that’s exactly what is happening in the Middle East, that is what is happening in all the countries of the south. Our feeling is that the use of force in the Middle East, in this very fragile region, has exactly the reverse consequences to the ones expected. They thought using force is going to pave the way to a new world order. We think that using force, on the contrary, is going to liberate resistance, liberate frustrations, give new reasons to some people (like Al-Qaeda) to oppose us.”
The passion flares anew as he leans across the table. “Our deep feeling is that if you want to be effective, don’t act this way. There is another road.”