The Iraqi question: Limits of French specificity.

By Khattar Abou Diab, researcher in International and Strategic Relations, political analyst at the revue "Arabies " in Paris.


The American and British raids carried out against the surroundings of Baghdad, last February 16, were not approved by Paris. Vis-a-vis this muscular message of W. Bush's administration, this specific French position confirms Paris non-alignment on London's and Washington's arrangements, without giving up the call to the maintenance of international control on the Iraqi armament. Roughly speaking this position is reiterated since the French withdrawal from the zones of air exclusion observation above Iraq and the desert's Fox operation in December 1998.
On another level, the interest of the French economic and political circles remains constant for this country. Indeed, since September 20, 2000, four French planes have landed in Baghdad within the framework of the Iraqi campaign against the UN embargo and its effects. This shows the influence of the old or renewed pro-Iraqi lobbies in Paris. Since 1995 and in spite of the difficulties of the voyage through the long terrestrial road Amman - Baghdad, Iraq regularly accommodated businessmen, oil tankers, industrialists and French politicians of any wing.
Is the moderate French position compared to the system of sanctions, the surge or the pilgrimage in Baghdad, explained by a nostalgia of a close past, by a renewed interest or by a shift of French policy?


Historic insight of the links France - Iraq:

Iraq is located on three lines of demarcation between the Middle East and the Gulf, the Arab world and the two Persian and Turkish worlds as well as finally between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam. This Iraq has always been molded by its geopolitics and been victim of its uncertainties. Following the First World War, the victory of the Allies led to the division of the Arabic Orient between two mandating powers: France and Great Britain. According to the agreements of Sykes-Picot (in 1916), both areas of the south of Mesopotamia: Bassora and Baghdad were attributed to England, while France was to take the area of Mossoul in the north of the country, Christian cradle area in the Orient: Nestorians, Assyrians, Chaldeans (1). But, for France to entirely keep its control over Syria and Lebanon, it had to release Mossoul to the English in exchange of significant shares in the oil companies capital. Besides this accidental bracket, France also started withdrawing from the Iraqi area all along the Iraqi Kingdom, which was entrusted to the Hachemites by London in order to make out of this country one of the solid sanctuaries on the road toward the Indies, and which later became a significant domino against the Soviet influence during the Cold War.

The overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 corresponded to the rise of Arab nationalism under Nasser. But, the new republic was a factory of coups d' Etat (2), where instability marked a country divided by the ethnic plans (Arab and Kurdish) and political plans between Nasserians, different Kurdish factions, communists and Baasistes. Only in 1968, does the Socialist Arab Baas party (Arabic nationalist and secularizing) conquer the power and gradually places the old capital Al-Rachid in the center of the Arab and regional politics. The Seventies witness a major shift of contemporary Iraq. The rise in the price of oil following the war of October 1973 ensures great revenue put at the service of the promotion and development of the country. The Iraqi administration seeks the diversification of foreign representatives in order to avoid Soviet tutelage, under the impulse of French-speaking Lebanese members of the Baas party and especially Elias Farah, the French track has been invoked taking into account favorable echoes in the Arab region of France Arab policy initiated by Charles de Gaulle. The strong man of the baasist regime Saddam Hussein adopts the French option and Baghdad accommodates with great pomp on November 30, 1974, the first visit of a high French person-in-charge, in the name of Mister Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister at the time. The French - Iraqi bilateral co-operation was becoming a reality, founded primarily on an economic basis, and incidentally on some ideological considerations: the baasist attraction for the model of the nation-State and for the Gaullists policy of the 5th republic as regards to foreign politics; the perception by certain French circles of Iraq as a secular country under the Baas party and as a stronghold against Islamic fundamentalism. Thus, Iraq of the middle of the Seventies represents the ideal profile; with its oil, its water and its men to become a central actor in the two geopolitical sets of the Middle East and the Gulf. It becomes especially France's first regional market, it is attracting for the business medium and political circles without taking the precaution to wonder on the effects of its line with respect to the domestic Kurdish problem and of its radical position towards the Israeli-Arab conflict. Trade is in full expansion with this rich country and thanks to technology made in France, a nuclear engine for civil purposes was born. It is baptized O' Chirac instead of its true name Osirak by Israel, which will destroy it in 1981 under Begin and Mitterrand.

The tensions between Iraq and several regional actors do not worry Paris by any means; France fully plays the game of immediate interest and the influence in an area where it has been removed from practically since the Suez campaign in 1956. However, the baasist Iraq ascending period was hindered and stopped by the Ayatollah Khomeyni's victory to power of the Islamic revolution in Iran. The war triggered against Iran on the initiative of President Saddam Hussein, does not dissuade France either to develop a kind of strategic partnership with Iraq. At that time, Occident and the moderate Arab countries found in Iraq the natural barrier to prohibit the extension of Khomeynis' revolution. In his own right, Saddam Hussein suggests to become the substitute of the shah of Iran as the Gulf's policeman. In this context, France has been the first Western country implicated with Iraq, to the point of assisting it technically and of lending it its most sophisticated fighter airplanes in order to prevent its collapse in action (3. The impressive amount of sales of French weapons in Iraq (14,4 billion francs in 1981 and 13 billion in 1982) give a precise idea of the relations that become more and more commercially entangled and politically fuzzy. France (small Satan in Khomeynis' terminology at the beginning of the revolution) thus attracts Iran's thunderbolts because of its massive engagement in favor of Iraq (supported openly by Washington and the Arab monarchies of the Gulf. Throughout the Eighties, the secret war between France and Iran extended from Beirut to Paris: hostage-taking incidents, terrorist actions and assassinations of Iranian opponents, these do not fail to provoke questions on the validity of French choices, on a very slippery territory in the Orient, which has become more and more complicated by the confrontation of the Zionist, nationalist Arab and Islamist projects. Indeed, France like any other great power, conscious of its international role and interests, sometimes assumes to its own costs the pro-Iraqi option in the war against Iran. But, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait has clouded the issue for France that has not been able to foresee or dissuade its partner from triggering its new disastrous adventure in August 1990.

President François Mitterrand inserted France in the rank of international anti-Iraqi coalition. But, according to Professor Samir Saul (4), of the History Department of the University of Montreal, France's turn in the Gulf's crisis (1990-1991) is explained by a general reorientation of the French economy. This one would have chosen, since the middle of the Eighties, to be more integrated to Western activities, while renouncing great projects of the developing countries. Without being as categorical, it is plausible that the instability of the Middle East and the Gulf has gradually pushed France towards durable solutions of replacement.
Following a by-gone decade forces us to take notice that the participation of France in the Gulf's second war was not paying back in economic and political points of view. The reinforcement of the pax Americana in the area does not necessarily serve the intentions of France. At the conference of Madrid, held on October 30 1991, intended to launch the peace process in the Middle East, France was not invited to this great diplomatic show. For the first time since François Premier, the Mediterranean power which France is, was excluded from a major political maneuver concerning the Orient. With the Gulf, the economic interests of France, even improved, did not compensate for the loss of the privileged place in Baghdad.


According to the current situation, which French policy?

The development of the Iraqi policy of France in the ten last years was affected undoubtedly by the negative investment of France in a link privileged with Saddam Hussein (5). Although all the political decision-makers do not share this French disappointment of the partner of yesterday, but the re-establishment of the links of confidence resembles a long-term process.
After the invasion of Kuwait and the precedent of the war with Iran, the international community, through the UN Security Council, was brought to take exceptional precautions. At that time, the purpose of the system of sanctions and in particular the massive embargo had as essential objective to contain inclinations of the Iraqi regime to adopt again an offensive policy. This system which had its justification and its utility for a certain time, starts to be bogged down for several reasons: Iraq's lack of co-operation, international bureaucracy and especially the abusive interpretation of the sanctions by certain countries. For Washington and London, the fall of the regime justifies the deployment of all means, including certain inspectors of the UNSCOM (first monitoring body of the Iraqi armament). But, for Paris, the poor functioning of the UN devices serves the objective of the international community, namely the defense of the regional security.

As the months went by and in spite of the adoption of the formula: oil against food and drugs, the blockade becomes unbearable on a human level. Whereas Baghdad brings forward the figure of tens of thousands of dead people and in particular of the children, Denis Halliday and Hans Van Sponek, two former persons in charge of the UN humanitarian program, incriminate a fatal embargo for the civil population. On the other hand, the permeability of the blockade with the complicity of the nearby countries leave space for a juicy traffic, which makes it possible for the regime to draw from the essential resources for its survival. Over the same wavelength, France by the voice of its Foreign Minister, Hubert Védrine draws up a negative assessment of the embargo: the mechanism asphyxiated Iraqi people and unstructured society, the system became increasingly cruel and intolerable, and less and less effective. The situation is excellent for the regime that certainly preferred status quo (6.)
For almost three years, France has been pleading for a revision of sanction politics. It restores the minimum of the relations with Iraq and attempts to play a mediating role within the Security Council, in coordination with Russia and China, without affecting the regular consultations with London and Washington. This policy was relatively profitable in 1997, when the French diplomacy collaborated closely with Kofi Annan, the UN General-Secretary, to defuse a great deflagration and to allow the return of the international inspectors. But, this policy found its limits in December 1998, when Washington and London decided to carry out a punitive military operation against Baghdad. Indeed, the French policy is handicapped by the junction of the unavowed objective of the Iraqi regime aiming at preserving the minimum of its military capacity, and of the ambiguous American policy with respect to Saddam Hussein and of the Iraqi opposition.

On its side, Baghdad tries to play the oil weapon and the trade weapon to attract the former French partner: the strategic partnership of the Eighties was rather a mercantile partnership, of business at the eyes of certain detractors from the French position concerning the system of sanctions. The country which shelters the second oil reserves of the world (112 billion barrels) employs various tactics to bribe large French or Russian oil companies, priority to exploit its large fields of the south and of the north. Moreover, 13 billion dollars (revenue of the oil formula against food) are blocked in a French bank, the National Bank of Paris. Recently, Iraq chose Europe in its trade exchanges. These veiled appeals issued in Paris lack a politically solid background, the Iraqi regime which would have bet on the old privileged link between President Jacques Chirac and the Iraqi administration found no better then to violently criticize it by Tarek Aziz voice, at the time of the operation storm of the desert. Concretely, Baghdad overestimates sometimes the Paris means on the international scene and it does not have a precise idea on the decision-making process in Paris and France's international obligations. This distorts any serious attempt to start a normal relationship again between yesterday's friends, in spite of the veto of certain French mediums at every serious renewal of links with Baghdad, because of the assessment of an unacceptable regime. The same sound of bell is found on the Tiger's banks where Iraqi influential poles plead for a great bargaining with Washington, considering the uselessness of the French or Russian options. For an Iraqi analyst, close to this tendency, Washington will necessarily need our oil in 2007. If the regime is maintained in the next coming years, a working arrangement with Washington is not excluded. These words could only be an illusion if the United States is indeed not Iraqi oil's first purchaser (for example, between January and August 1999, Washington imported Iraqi oil of a value of 2,1 billion dollars, by placing itself at the head of the importing countries within the framework of the oil formula against food).

In the shifting context of the Iraqi question, one can speak of a French specificity compared to Iraq. The French official position was well described by President Jacques Chirac on January 4, 2001, at the time of the presentation of the wishes of the diplomatic corps. In Iraq, the resumption of the inspections and the deployment of the long-term armaments control must be engaged without delay in order to allow the postponement, then the withdrawal of the sanctions. Their maintenance for the tenth year, by striking harshly innocent and already very afflicted populations, poses political but also ethical problems.

Without any doubt, the accession of a republican administration will change the rules of the game. Vis-a-vis the ambiguous suggestions for intelligent sanctions, France defends a policy of international vigilance which replaces the obsolete system of permanent sanctions. It consists in installing controls on the armaments designed by the resolution 1284, without making acceptance of these controls a prerequisite for the postponement, then for the withdrawal of the punitive sanctions. However, it is necessary to wait for the end of spring 2001, so that the team of W. Bush defines the axes of her Iraqi policy. In Washington, one recognizes the cogency of the French analysis. Nevertheless, the winner's son of the Gulf war will probably not make any apparent concession in the Iraqi file, because it is likely to chip its image by the public opinion. For that, the gate is opened to all dangers in an area also affected by the sudden developments of Intifada against Israel. As in 1991, the Iraqi question and the Israeli-Arabic conflict are interdependent. This de facto connection will weigh on the perceptions of the international actors. In addition, the evolution of the Iranian situation following the next presidential elections will influence also the visions of Washington, Paris, London and Moscow towards Baghdad.

In this unrestrained race between the fatal status quo and the possible American-British escalation, France does not have the means to promote its specific policy. It is true that Iraq does not represent a French foreign policy priority (as it is the case for the Bush administration), but Iraq represents rather a stake which lies within the scope of its regional action. However, this stake is of revealing degree of French influence in this area of the world.

Notes:
(1) The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Aziz is Chaldean by confession, originating from a village close to Mossoul.
(2) In Pierre Rossi, "l'Irak des révoltes", le Seuil "1965.
(3) See "La Menace", Pierre Péan, Fayard, 1987.
(4) In review " International Studies ", Mars 1995.
(5) Dominique Moïsi, Deputy Manager of the French Institute of International Relations, " Arabies ", Paris, September 2000.
6) Interview with Libération, March 1, 2001.