He stunned a group of Arab ambassadors by telling them “his foreign policy priority as president would be to forge a closer relationship with Israel,” The Washington Times on May 12 cited a report by The New York Times as saying. His pledged “friendship” with the US is viewed by Arabs as heralding a new unbalanced approach that will give impetus to Washington’s strategic plans for the Middle East and would perpetuate the regional Arab – Israeli, Iraqi, Darfur and Lebanon - Syria conflicts in particular. His foreign minister agrees: “On … the Middle East, on the need for an alliance with America, on the role of France in Europe — we’re very close,” Kouchner said on record.
Sarkozy’s pro-American views have added to Arab concerns that he would break with France’s traditionally independent policy in their region, dashing as wishful thinking Arab hopes of an independent European approach that might develop a counterbalance in resolving Arab conflicts to the US Israeli-biased approach. Sarkozy’s warm relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the expected accession of British Chancellor Gordon Brown to the premiership signal the rise of a relatively pro-American trio of European leaders.
In his first speech after his election, Sarkozy warned Iran, Syria, and Libya that they could no longer play Europe off against America. Like his predecessor Chirac, Sarkozy is determined to disengage Syria from Lebanon in coordination with the US, but it will not be as “personal” as it was with Chirac, but unlike him he openly called Hizbullah a terrorist organization, which would clear the way for the main Lebanese anti-Israel resistance group to be included in the EU list of terrorist organizations, thus bringing France closer to the US classification of Hizbullah. His foreign minister’s visit of support to Beirut last week at the height of fighting between the Lebanese army and a suspiciously al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Islam group in a northern one square kilometre Palestinian refugee camp was seen by some as playing into the hands of a US strategy to exacerbate Lebanon’s internal political crisis into a violent one.
US – French coordination in Lebanon and vis-à-vis Syria was unveiled following the Israeli war on Lebanon last summer, but was recently confirmed further at the UN Security Council by the joint US-British-French draft resolution to create an international tribunal for Lebanon under chapter 7 of the United Nation Charter.
Sarkozy is expected to be more aggressive as he is also gearing towards more coordination with Washington in the Sudanese region of Darfur; he has called for “urgent” action there, warning that Khartoum would be made to face international justice for its actions. Kouchner, his maverick top diplomat, considers the Sudan’s war-torn region his top priority. On May 9, the US State Department said it wants the new elected French president to play an important role in Darfur peacekeeping mission, particularly in the no-fly zone.
On Iraq, Sarkozy’s choice of Kouchner, the co-founder of the Nobel Prize winner “Doctors Without Borders,” as his foreign minister could send a message to Arabs that priority will go to “humanitarianism” in foreign policy, contrary to the long-held Gaullist French policy, which evaluates crises through the lens of France’s national interests. Kouchner is famous for developing the theory of “humanitarian intervention” to justify international military adventures according to which he believes that the US-led invasion was justified to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Sarkozy's declared hopes to forge closer ties with the NATO could mean a greater role for France in training the new Iraqi police and army based on quotas already set by NATO. It could also mean greater involvement in the Arab section of the alliance’s southern flank in Lebanon, where French peacekeepers already play a leading role.
On the humanitarian crises in the occupied Palestinian territories and Iraq, Sarkozy’s top diplomat is silently passive, more in line with the US deafening silence, revealing a politically selective approach in his humanitarian concerns that took him to Africa, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Darfur and even led him to endorse a boycott of the Olympic Games in Peking in order to force China to break its trade relations with Sudan on Darfur.
Sarkozy’s attitude and planned policies for alien immigrants have also a lot in common with those of US President George W. Bush, and will undoubtedly be watched as a test case to judge his cultural and political approach to Arabs and Muslims in general. His view of “radical Islamists” could place him in line with US-led world war on “Islamic terrorism.” Leading British writer on the Middle East, Patrick Seale, on April 27 quoted him as saying: “Algeria was very brave to interrupt the democratic process. If the army had not acted, one could have had a Taliban regime in Algeria.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking forward to visiting France and having cooperation with her new French counterpart, the State Department said last week. “There's a lot on the table for the U.S. and France in terms of being able to address issues of mutual concern around the globe, whether that's Iran or the Middle East or dealing with poverty alleviation in Africa or climate change,” State Department spokesman Sean McComack told a news briefing.
Counter Arguments
However several factors could yet reign in a complete clean break with Paris’ traditional balanced approach to Middle East issues, a “hope” shared by all Arab governments and even by such controversial grassroots movements like Hizbullah of Lebanon and the ruling Hamas of the Palestinian Authority government.
Arabs are already aware that Sarkozy’s father was Hungarian and grandfather Jewish, but he himself grew up Catholic and speaks no Hungarian. His heritage “doesn't mean he's going to take Jewish positions,” said Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris. Moreover Arab leaders are already doing normal business with both Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish leaders.
Sarkozy's programs will, first, depend on the legislative elections of the National Assembly to be held in two ballots on June 10 and 17. Second he will spend the lion's share of his time dealing with domestic issues then he will be preoccupied with France’s role in Europe and NATO. Third he has to deal with an array of a powerful coalition of vested interests, from the communist-dominated trade unions to the elites who dominate the civil service, not least the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Quai d'Orsay. He, fourth, is on record as saying recently that “he wants excellent links with the Arab states” and there is no reason not to believe him.
Fifth, Sarkozy’s pro-Americanism is not a carte blanche as he “is impressed far more by what the United States does at home than by its global aims and presence,” according to Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post. His opposition to Turkey’s membership in the EU is evidence that both countries’ international agendas are not identical. Sixth, if the election of Fran็ois Mitterrand as president in 1981 and 1988 is to serve as a guiding precedent it reminds observers that it caused similar worries in the Arab world, but Mitterrand was also the first Western leader to declare support for Palestinian self-determination and a right to have their own state. Seventh, Sarkozy could be following the leadership of the US, but isn’t this is the same leadership with the strongest Jewish connection that most Arab leaders are already in business with, which promises more of the same, but no drastic change.
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