FRANCE'S PRO-U.S. TURN ON IRAQ

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FRANCE'S PRO-U.S. TURN ON IRAQ

FOREIGN MINISTER'S SURPRISE VISIT

Kouchner: Signals end of Chirac policy.

August 21, 2007 -- ONE key promise that Nicolas Sarkozy had made during his presidential election campaign last spring was to "correct foreign-policy mistakes" made by his predecessor Jacques Chirac.

Chief among these was Chirac's desperate efforts to prevent Iraq's liberation from Saddam Hussein's regime of terror. Chirac failed to save his friend's regime but managed to sour relations with the United States, Great Britain and more than 40 other democracies that joined the Coalition of the Willing to liberate Iraq in 2003.

Sarkozy's moves to correct the mistake started before his election, when he met President Bush at the White House in 2006 and described Chirac's policy as "arrogant."

The surprise visit paid to Iraq by France's new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, this week is another move by Sarkozy to shed Chirac's legacy. No better man than Kouchner could have been chosen to signal France's change of policy. For Kouchner is one of a handful of people in the West who recognized the murderous nature of Saddam's regime and called for its overthrow as early as the 1980s.

In fact, Kouchner, a medical doctor by training, partly made his public image by helping the hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees who fled from Saddam's tyranny in the 1970s and the 1990s.

For years, Medecins sans Frontiers, the organization that Kouchner and his friends founded, was one of the few Western charities that publicized the sufferings of the Iraqi peoples.

As a result, when he arrived in Baghdad the other day, Kouchner was among friends. He also had an opportunity to lay a wreath at a monument to one of his oldest friends, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations' first emissary to Iraq, who was murdered by al Qaeda almost exactly four years ago.

Kouchner's visit, full of symbolism, shatters one of the key points in al Qaeda's analysis: that the Western democracies will never unite to develop a common strategy against terror. At one point, when Chirac invited German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin to a gathering to forge an anti-American triple alliance, al Qaeda's analysis appeared plausible.

Now, however, both Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy understand that the perception of Western disunity may be one of the factors that prolongs the conflict in Iraq.

As long as al Qaeda and the Ba'athist bitter-enders believe that Western divisions might destroy the U.S.-led coalition, they will have an incentive to continue the fight. Once they lose that incentive, they might well decide that, with Iraq unlikely to fall, they had better look for alternative strategies in their global jihad.

Beyond its obvious symbolic and psychological value, France's change of position on Iraq could have a number of practical positive effects.

* Free of constant French diplomatic sniping, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization could fully honor its commitment to help train the new Iraqi army and police force. So far, the alliance has trained no more than one-tenth of the quota allocated to it. (In fact, Hungary seems to be the only NATO member to have done its share.) NATO has also refused to organize training courses inside Iraq.

* The European Union could review its policy toward new Iraq in a positive way, starting by treating the new Iraqi leaders as the legitimate elected representatives of their people. With French opposition no longer a factor, the E.U. could open an office in Baghdad and appoint a special emissary.

* The new French policy on Iraq could also inspire a change of attitude in Moscow. With Schroeder and Chirac gone, Putin may find it harder to pursue an Iraq policy based on nostalgia for Saddam Hussein and petty enmity toward the United States.

* France's return to Iraq strengthens the new regional trend in favor of a positive attitude toward the nascent Iraqi democracy. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are among several Arab countries that have decided to reopen their embassies in Baghdad and extend official invitations to the new Iraqi leadership.

* The change symbolized by Kouchner's visit to Iraq may have yet another positive effect. It sends a signal to the Islamic Republic in Tehran not to count on Western divisions to allow it to ignore U.N. Security Council resolutions. At the same time, the mullahs may rethink their strategy of "bleeding the Coalition" in Iraq.

* The French change of attitude destroys one of the key arguments of those in the United States who opposed the liberation of Iraq. The argument is that by toppling Saddam, the United States alienated its major allies, notably France. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, used the argument as a campaign theme, echoing the views of other leading figures of the American left such as Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and Noam Chomsky, not to mention the financier George Soros. The message coming from France is all the more discouraging for the American left because Kouchner, a lifelong Socialist, is the most popular figure of the French left, according to opinion polls.

* Finally, French cooperation could allow the U.S.-led Coalition to envisage an expanded role for the United Nations in Iraq. The United Nations' experience in distributing humanitarian aid and tackling the problem of displaced persons inside and outside Iraq could be used in a positive way and not as a means of undermining the new Iraqi regime. In time, a new policy may be developed under which the United Nations assumes the task of protecting Iraq over the period of two to three years needed for new Iraq to defend itself. That, in turn, could enable the United States to withdraw the bulk of its troops before the next Iraqi general election in 2009.

Sarkozy has made it clear that he wants France on the side of the United States and other democracies in the global war against terrorism. No one expects France to send troops to Iraq; nor is that necessary. But by clearly indicating whose side France is on, Sarkozy has already repaired part of the damage done by Chirac and his entourage.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08212007/posto...urn_on_iraq.htm

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But wait. Bush's stubborness to hold to what he believes is the right thing will cause the world to hate us forever. Are you now saying that Europe may be slowly seeing the truth? LIAR.