IN Paris yesterday US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continued her first whistle stop tour of Europe and the Middle East with her most important meeting after her talks with Palestinians and Israelis. France has been the most resolute opponent of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. As a result relations between Paris and Washington were placed under considerable strain.
Rice however was not about to repeat any of the US jibes about France representing “Old Europe”. Her Paris visit was all about healing wounds and finding common ground with her French hosts. Very diplomatically she said that she had chosen the French capital to make her keynote foreign policy speech because it was “a center of debate”. She called for the opening of a new chapter in European-US relations. This reversal of the Bush administration’s past contempt for French policy was notable in itself. There could not have been anything better calculated to smooth French feelings than allowing that the French opposition to US Iraqi policy was a legitimate part of an international “debate.”
The Bush White House now appears to be appalled at the prospect of having to continue to carry its self-imposed Iraqi burden virtually alone. At some point the international community, almost certainly under the auspices of the United Nations, is going to have to replace the US-dominated coalition forces. Though Iraqi insurgents are likely to take no more kindly to non-US foreign troops than they have to Washington’s forces, a UN military presence to assist Iraqi police and military, with minimal input from the Americans will remove at a stroke claims of US neoimperialism. France as a member of the Security Council could play a pivotal role in organizing that UN force. On a wider canvas, the United States needs to improve trade relations with the European Union. There remain delicate subsidy issues to be resolved on steel and agriculture and the sale of US genetically modified crops in the EU. The Europeans are every bit as prickly about their commercial advantages and independence as the Americans.
If the US desire for rapprochement with the Europeans is to take concrete form, it will of course have to amount to more than emollient words from Rice. European states, including apparently even the British, have become frustrated at the degree to which their generally cautious advice has been swept aside by President Bush. They will be looking for a positive role in US foreign policy, to be consulted in advance instead of being presented with faits accomplis and then hectored for voicing objections.
The reality is that for all its military power and economic strength, the US simply cannot go it alone in world affairs. Europe and America should find broad agreement and avoid rivalry — and then move to involve other centers of power. Involving the Europeans constructively will bring in the Russians and create a consensus from which effective international action can be taken to undo past mistakes. Europe will wait now to see if Rice’s words are matched by Bush’s actions.
