[Marxism] Diana Johnstone on Sarkozy's foreign policy

[Louis Proyect]

Counterpunch, September 1 / 2, 2007
Sarkozy's New French Foreign Policy
Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket

By DIANA JOHNSTONE

Back in Paris from his U.S. vacation and Kennebunkport lunch with the 
Bush clan, Sarkozy summoned French diplomats to lay down the new foreign 
policy line. The media focused on his statement that "a nuclear-armed 
Iran is for me unacceptable". He called for tightening sanctions, as 
well as an "opening if Iran chooses to respect its obligations", as the 
only way to avoid having to make a "catastrophic" choice between "the 
Iranian bomb or the bombardment of Iran".

France was not threatening to drop bombs itself, but was indirectly 
accepting a future U.S. or Israeli bombing of Iran as legitimate, in 
contrast to Chirac's refusal to endorse war against Iraq.

More fundamentally, Sarkozy's policy speech subscribed to the 
U.S.-Israeli ideology of a "clash of civilizations" brought about solely 
by unprovoked radical Muslim aggressiveness. According to Sarkozy, the 
primary challenge confronting the world today is "how to prevent a 
confrontation between Islam and the West" -- a confrontation for which 
he put full blame on the Muslim side: the "extremist groups such as Al 
Qaeda who dream of installing, from Indonesia to Nigeria, a caliphate 
rejecting any opening, any modernity, even the very idea of diversity". 
There is no hint here that militant Islam might be, at least in part, a 
reaction to decades of aggressive Western intervention in Muslim 
countries, notably in Palestine and Iraq. The European Union must build 
a unified defense, first of all to meet "the threat of a confrontation 
between Islam and the West". He cited the Danish cartoon controversy as 
a portent of clashes to come.

Sarkozy said he hoped to prevent the confrontation, notably by 
supporting "forces of moderation and modernity" in the Arab world. In 
practice, this means joining the United States and Israel in isolating 
and eliminating the Palestinian resistance on religious grounds. Sarkozy 
called for "reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority, under the 
authority of its President", ignoring the fact that President Mahmoud 
Abbas has lost almost all popular support and that the Palestinians 
democratically elected Hamas. Sarkozy called Hamas' successful 
resistance to the attempt by Israeli-armed militias to take control of 
Gaza "the creation of a 'Hamastan' as the first step in seizing control 
of all the Palestinian territories by radical Islamists."

"We cannot resign ourselves to that prospect. France is not resigned to 
it", he declared.

Openly abandoning any notion of a European defense independent of NATO, 
Sarkozy called for what in Washington is called greater "burden sharing" 
by Europeans. There was no more talk of a "multipolarity" in world 
affairs as an alternative to "unipolarity" around a U.S. hyperpower. 
Rather, like the Bush administration itself, Sarkozy rejected 
"unilateralism" as a failure, calling instead for "an effective 
multilateralism"--starting with the Franco-U.S. alliance.

Sarkozy better watch out. The coach he thinks he's pushing up the hill 
may be about to go over the side of a cliff--taking the rest of us with it.

full: http://www.counterpunch.com/johnstone09012007.html