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Chirac lost



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 23rd 03, 06:19 PM
JD
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Default Chirac lost

July 22, 2003

Global View
Germany Makes a Choice,
And It Isn't France
By GEORGE MELLOAN

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a leftist hell-raiser in his youth but today a popular politician, last week visited Washington and offered his views on what the future world order should be. French President Jacques Chirac must have been stunned. The message was that Germany has its own ideas about international politics, and they are precisely the opposite of Mr. Chirac's grand vision of a united Europe that would become a rival to the U.S. for global power.

Mr. Fischer, who met with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, said that Germany does not want to be a rival to the U.S. He asserted that Europe can only be strong in cooperation with the U.S., not as a competitor.

By contrast, Mr. Chirac, who can't rid himself of the aspirations to "glory" that Charles de Gaulle implanted in the French psyche in the 1960s, wants the Atlantic alliance to disappear. When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder employed anti-Americanism in a close campaign for re-election last year, Mr. Chirac thought he saw an opportunity achieve his vision of Europe as a world power. He set about to prove France's political strength by trying to undermine the U.S.-British endeavor to remove Saddam Hussein as a threat to peace. He imagined that a Europe led by Germany and France -- but mostly France -- was finally taking shape.

He was dead wrong. Every member and candidate member of the European Union other than Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg made it clear that they were siding with the Americans. Since Belgium and Luxembourg are minor players, for all practical purposes it only remained to be seen how long Germany would be willing to serve as France's disciple.

Germany has its share of left-wing enemies of the Bush administration, but Germans as a whole are not fond of being seen by the world as lackeys. For all its accomplishments, the EU has not yet succeeded in burying those old enmities in the hearts and minds of the French and German peoples. Germany, although currently perched on the brink of a recession, still has the world's third largest economy, and dwarfs France in population. Mr. Schroeder's popularity with German voters nose-dived soon after his re-election, in part because of his failures at economic reform but also because of his willingness to play the junior partner in the Franco-German alliance.

That's where Mr. Fischer entered the picture. The foreign minister probably had a greater role in getting the chancellor re-elected than the chancellor's anti-Bush remarks. He conducted an effective whistle-stop campaign on behalf of Mr. Schroeder, swaying a skeptical German public just enough to allow the chancellor to eke out a victory. His Green party, a member of the ruling coalition, tipped the electoral balance in the chancellor's favor.

After the U.S. and Britain launched their attack on Saddam, the antiwar chattering classes gave the world the impression that Europe was seized by a frenzy of anti-Americanism. This was much exaggerated and at any rate, the brighter politicians of Europe soon realized that France and Germany were fated to lose more than they gained from creating this impression. The reaction of Americans to the stories of European hatred was not a friendly one and the U.S. is a big market for products made by German and French workers. French wine producers were already suffering from the more effective competition from lower-cost producers in places like Australia and Chile.

Fortunately for Germany, Mr. Fischer is one of the country's brighter politicians. He soon began to edge Germany back into the good graces of the Bush administration. Germany made it clear that it was not about to abandon the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which had protected West Germany from the threat of a Soviet attack during the long Cold War. Germany humored France by joining in the creation of a EU "rapid reaction" force which would in theory rival NATO someday. But this was largely a paper exercise because neither France nor Germany, under EU budget restrictions, has the money to build up anything other than a symbolic military unit, and they won't get much help from other NATO members. Europe is still dependent on NATO for protection against predators like Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Fischer made the German position clear in his visits with American leaders and his TV interviews last week. Berlin made a special point of giving the American press the word that the foreign minister would say some important things during his visit. He of course did so, although the news that Germany had dumped France and had gone over to the Americans was drowned out by other reportage. It couldn't compete with the partisan claims that George W. Bush and England's Tony Blair had misled the world about the quality of intelligence reports on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Yet in terms of the future relationship between Europe and the U.S. it was far more important.

What it means is that so far as Europe is concerned, it is now France against the rest, or more precisely, the rest against France. Mr. Chirac rolled the dice in a big gamble against the U.S. and he came up snake eyes. Germany is not buying his idea of a multipolar world consisting of the U.S., Europe, Russia and China. In the minds of thoughtful leaders, that sounds a bit too much like the world of the 1930s, in which big-power competition eventually became a big-power-fostered world war, destroying millions of lives and segueing into the Cold War that threatened even greater destruction with nuclear weapons. The best protection against the return of such a dangerous world is a firm alliance between the United States and Europe, an alliance that already exists and has served both Europe and the U.S. well for decades.

The preservation of that alliance, bound together by the North Atlantic treaty, is in the best interests of Americans and Germans, not to mention the wider world. The idea that an egocentric French politician would put his ambitions ahead of this vast goal is appalling. Apparently, Mr. Fischer thinks so too, or he wouldn't have made his historic trip to Washington.

  #2  
Old July 23rd 03, 07:08 PM
JD
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you ever heard of NATO??



"Bill Jameson" wrote in message
...
JD wrote:


uncited post clipped.

Why did you even begin to think that was relevant for an aviation
newsgroup?



  #3  
Old July 23rd 03, 08:11 PM
Bill Jameson
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JD wrote:

you ever heard of NATO??


JATO?
  #4  
Old July 23rd 03, 09:44 PM
Tarver Engineering
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"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
Bill Jameson wrote:

JD wrote:

you ever heard of NATO??


JATO?


RATO?


Cruise missile


  #5  
Old July 24th 03, 01:45 AM
phil hunt
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On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 18:08:35 GMT, JD wrote:
you ever heard of NATO??



"Bill Jameson" wrote in message
...
JD wrote:


uncited post clipped.

Why did you even begin to think that was relevant for an aviation
newsgroup?



A: top posting

Q: what's the most annoying thing about Usenet.


JD, please conform to normal Usenet conventions in future.

--
Phil
"All alternate timelines need airships" -- Steve Glover
  #6  
Old July 24th 03, 08:01 PM
ArVa
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snip (somewhat biased) article

I can't wait to read what Mr. Melloan will write about this :
http://www.expatica.com/francemain.a...&item_id=33001

ArVa
  #7  
Old July 25th 03, 03:17 PM
Bill Silvey
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Default

Look underneath the sofa cushions. That's where I lose most of my French
leaders.

--
http://www.delversdungeon.dragonsfoot.org
Remove the X's in my email address to respond.
"Damn you Silvey, and your endless fortunes." - Stephen Weir
I hate furries.


  #8  
Old July 26th 03, 06:38 PM
Peter Stickney
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In article ,
"Bill Silvey" writes:
Look underneath the sofa cushions. That's where I lose most of my French
leaders.


If I were not a devotee of the indestrucatble PS/2 Keayboard, you,
sir, would owe me one.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster
 




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