It looks like for all the bluster of Chirac and the French government about the need for international cooperation they aren’t willing to follow their own advice:
Britain has concluded that its three-nation alliance with France and Germany is in effect over after a series of rows between Tony Blair and the French President, Jacques Chirac.
Ministers believe President Chirac has become impossible to work with, and one government source described him as a "rogue elephant". The strategy of "trilateralism" has now given way to limited ad hoc co-operation on specific issues.
Asked if the three-way approach was dead, one Blair aide replied, "yes". The Prime Minister’s change of tack emerged as he accused France and Germany of watering down moves to ensure stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and warned that this week’s Nato summit had not faced up to the threat of global terrorism.
What truly disgusts me is that the French have patently refused to send a NATO rapid-response team to Afghanistan despite the fact that Hamid Karzai has pleaded for NATO to send more troops to safeguard the upcoming elections there. Chirac’s position is completely untenable — and the only way it can be explained is that Chirac thinks it perfectly acceptable to harm the Afghan people to thumb his nose at the United States.
Chirac is politically vulnerable and increasingly isolated, and his policies are no longer driven by anything other than a kneejerk anti-Americanism. Chirac’s arrogance will soon be his downfall as even his European allies tire of his incessant moralizing and unbounded arrogance.
“Chirac’s Arrogant Unilateralism”/”The Prime Minister’s (Blair-UK) change of tack emerged as he accused France and Germany of watering down moves to ensure stability in Iraq”
Do you even understand what “unilateral” means??? How can Chirac be unilateral when Germany is with France?? UK on the other hand is alone…uni…alone…get it, Jay?
The real point is that since France is the largest supplier of troops of NATO, France will refuse to send NATO (e.g.G our troops) to finish the dirty job that Americans don’t want to do. We told you in advance not to go in Irak. You went anyway, and now the situation is getting crazy: deal with it! We’re not gonna eat bullets for you for a war we didn’t wanted!! Neither will we send our troops in Afghanistan now that americans are seen as making war for nothing. the whole war on terror is discredited in the muslim world, and France is not gonna loose his face and trust to please Bush.
As for Afghanistan, France is already present there. If you hadn’t sent 130 000 soldiers in Irak for reasons that have nothing to see with terrorism, you would have secured Afghanistan long ago…Of course, the reputation of this country is worst than Vietnam for occupying forces…it’s easier to fight an enemy under embargo for 20 years in a flat landscape. Not so brave in the end.
As I said before, Chirac is over in 3 years, whatever happens in Irak. But the french population totally agrees on his views on Irak (maybe that’s the only thing we agree with him). Getting Chirac out will not change a thing on the position of France.
Jay, haven’t you learned anything about morality despite the decision of the American and Israelian supreme courts recently? Don’t you think it’s time for you to recognize who really is arrogant?
How can the US be alone with the support of the UK, Poland, the Baltic states, Italy, the Czechs, the Japanese, the South Koreans, etc? When the US has it’s own coalition, it’s “unilateralism” – why not apply the same to France.
Punishing the Afghan people for the actions of the US is hardly moral. Disagreeing with a war is one thing. Refusing to take action in a UN-approved peacekeeping mission in another country just to spite the US isn’t a policy, it’s petulance.
As Glenn Reynolds notes:
It seems that arrogant unilateralism isn’t paying off for Chirac. Perhaps he should have worked harder to build a coalition with Britain and smaller European nations — like George W. Bush did on Iraq!
Vincent writes:
“Neither will we send our troops in Afghanistan now that americans are seen as making war for nothing.”
So I guess you believe it was wrong to send troops into Afghanistan and take out the Taliban and eliminate the Al Qaeda training camps?
Another, please read my posts, and then raise your questions if it wasn’t answered in the first place. I’m not here to be your personal assistant and repeat the same thing over and over again. All the answers you need are above. Of course if you’d like to move further or deepen the debate, feel free, I’ll gladly answer.(e.g. “As for Afghanistan, France is already present there”)
Yes the Us are acting unilateraly: they have decided something on their own, and then forced others to support. Even UK was not ready to go to war without UN approval.
On the other hand, there is no “leader” among France, Germany, Russia and China: We all opposed that war, sometimes for different reasons. Don’t worry, I didn’t expected you to understand that. Your beloved G.W.Bush himself is admitting that the US have acted unilaterally, but you probably know better!!
As for Afghanistan, the invasion was launched by americans. The help we offered to provide at the time was refused by the US, for the reason that our technology couldn’t cooperate with yours (as the britts have notice in Irak), and limited to information gathering and sea-transport control. Since then, you have deployed 130 000 soldiers in a country that has nothing to do with terrorism. If we send troops in Afghanistan, it allows you to keep more troops in Irak, and we don’t support that.
Your should stop your war on terror because it will destroy you just as much as your war on drugs made of you the first consumers of drugs in the world.