SEA ISLAND, Georgia, 11 June 2004 — US President George W. Bush’s seaside patch-up with entrenched Iraq war opponents, a coup ahead of his November re-election bid, cannot hide lingering tensions that plague the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Bush and fellow leaders of the Group of Eight powers took a surreal suit-clad stroll for the cameras in the twilight along a reedy beach at their resort on Sea Island, off the coast of Georgia.
The awkward display of affection could not mask the squabbles bubbling back to the surface over the next steps for an independently-governed Iraq, and sniping over everything from the Middle East to the outlook for the world economy. Bush had exulted in a unanimous UN Security Council resolution backing his plan to return sovereignty to Iraq as a sign that the international community stood “side by side with the Iraqi people.”
France, Germany and Russia immediately welcomed the accord as a significant advance for Iraq. But the rapprochment evaporated when Bush suggested NATO take a wider role in providing Iraqi security.
“I do not think that it is NATO’s job to intervene in Iraq,” said French President Jacques Chirac, the only leader who kept a tie on through the supposedly easy-going talks at the sumptuous Atlantic retreat.
“Moreover, I do not have the feeling that it would be either timely or necessarily well understood,” said Chirac.
“I see myself with strong reservations on this initiative.” NATO’s involvement in Iraq has so far been limited to providing logistical support to a 6,500-strong multinational force under Polish command that controls a sector south of Baghdad.
Bush did secure G-8 support for a watered-down scheme to promote to pro-democratic reform in the Middle East and North Africa, but only after including a tract swinging attention back to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Our support for reform in the region will go hand in hand with our support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict,” the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States said in a joint statement
Chirac, one of the fiercest opponents of the war in Iraq, had been distinctly chilly about the Middle East initiative. At a luncheon with Arab and Muslim leaders, he said the region did not need “missionaries of democracy,” echoing European Commission chief Romano Prodi’s warning that “the mother of all conflicts is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, another key member of the trans-Atlantic alliance who was invited to the summit, also expressed doubts.
“Change must not be imposed from outside. Differences between countries have to be taken into consideration,” he said.
Discord infected discussions of the world economy, which is the showing the strongest performance in years, with France and the United States slipping into tired performances about the biggest risks to the outlook.
The United States pointed to eurozone countries as a drag on the world, nudging them to remove constraints on growth, such as worker protection laws it blames for clogging up the labor market. France jabbed a finger at the US trade deficit as the severe threat.
Chirac said he and some other leaders worried about the “possible consequences of the large US budget and trade deficit for the future and notably on interest rate developments.”
The G-8 powers wrangled over how far to go in erasing Iraq’s debt of $120 billion. The United States is pushing for up to 90 percent to be canceled.
But a French official, who asked not to be named, said while the G-8 leaders had agreed to forgive a “substantial” part of Iraq’s debt, they had not set a precise figure.
For France and Germany, substantial is around 50 percent while Canada considers it around two-thirds, and is willing to forego all of its own $750 million dollar portion. Japan has given no sign.
