On the French

[ttraub]

(Revised March 28, 2003)

Chirac and Saddam's ties go back to the 1970s; they are personal friends. Chirac is uncomfortable with a war that is not fully justified, even though French-supported U.N. resolutions have dictated a military response to Iraqi intransigence. Chirac's concern is understandable. If Saddam and his gang are overthrown, the next regime may not be as friendly to French commercial interests. If Saddam survives, his gratitude to France would probably result in lots more business for French companies. This is the way things work in the real world; every country pursues its own self-interest.

The sad thing is that Chirac has expended a lot of political capital in his vigorous drive to oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East. At this point, Franco-American ties are seriously damaged. The Americans wanted the French to set aside their commercial interests and take note of post-9/11 reality: the U.S. will go after any country with any degree of support for Al Qaeda and similar movements. Probably, that will eventually include Syria and Saudi Arabia, but for obvious reasons the Saudis are currently safe. Had they disallowed use of their bases and airspace, however, that situation might have changed.

Let's face facts. In the grand scheme of things, Iraq is a piddling little dictatorship with a lot of oil which they will certainly sell to the world no matter who is in control, and the U.S. is the world's largest economic and military power, with whom the French are going to have to live long after Iraq's oil is gone. The French should have made more of an effort to ease Saddam out of power or negotiate his disarmament; when that inevitably failed, they should have thrown their support behind the U.S. because in the long run, the U.S. is their true ally, not Iraq. In his drive to distinguish himself in the history books, Chirac made the mistake of hanging on to Saddam a little too long and has now discredited himself and his government to the extent that Americans actually suspect them of supporting the enemy.

The French are a very intelligent people and I think ultimately they will see things this way. For the moment though, emotions are running high and people are saying things they'll regret later. Let's give them a break; they'll see reason sooner or later. Even though Americans are angry with the French, and they find us annoying, in the long run we are friends and allies; even friends have disagreements sometimes.