The Specter of Unilateralism

Many Americans, indeed many Westerners, believe that the French are anti-American by nature. No one in Washington would be surprised if a top-secret document, leaked from the Quai d'Orsay, revealed that French leaders spend their spare time thinking of ways to tweak the beak of the U.S. eagle. The myth of maverick France, personified by the larger-than-life figure of General Charles de Gaulle, is profoundly anchored in the collective imagination. Myths die hard. Nobody seems to notice that de Gaulle has been dead for more than 30 years and that the Franco-U.S. relationship has moved on.

Today, French opinion on how to approach the United States is far more nuanced. One can speak roughly of three main strands of French opinion. Some very influential French leaders and experts are aligned along two diametrically opposed, or polarized, attitudes, one supporting and one opposing the United States; between these, however, is the majority "moderate" attitude, which is what has made the Western alliance possible.

At one end of the polarized attitudes, some French support unfailing solidarity that at times even shades into docility. Those who possess this attitude argue that the United States should not be hindered in discharging its global responsibility as the champion of democracy and security manager of the world. From this point of view, France should work toward supporting policies that benefit the Western community as a whole. National and personal interests must be set aside for the general interest. Some French strategic experts have built careers on being sharply critical of French policies that stray from the narrow paths defined by Washington, because a French expert who castigates the archaic ways of France will easily find a chorus of approval from across the Atlantic.

Opposing this polarized view is another, equally polarized viewpoint, in which everything the United States does is bad, or even malevolent, and every tragic event on the international scale is directly or indirectly a U.S. responsibility. These two extreme viewpoints are influential, but they are definitely in the minority. For most French--leaders, pundits, and ordinary citizens alike--France and the United States are ancient allies. The French have never forgotten the gratitude owed to the United States for its help in smashing the yoke of nazism and escaping the chains of communism. This majority viewpoint has sustained France as one of the most redoubtable allies of the United States during the defining crises of the Cold War, such as the Euro-missile crisis.

This attitude, however, does not translate into vassalage. Although France shares nearly all of the international objectives of the United States, the French definitely wish to preserve their right to differ on how these objectives should be achieved. Iraq epitomizes this desire of independence. The current difference in the attitudes of Paris and Washington should not belie the fact that both countries share the same final objective: to reintegrate Iraq into the community of nations as a democratic and peace-loving society. Ideally, realization of this goal would entail the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.

France participated energetically in the Persian Gulf War and in the sanctions regime against Iraq. Over the course of the last ten years, however, a rift has opened between the perceptions, not of Paris and Washington, but rather of Europeans on one side and the United States and Great Britain on the other. France, with Europe, believes that maintaining the current policy of embargoes and selective strikes has failed to weaken Hussein. Instead, the population has suffered, the country is devastated, and the dictator remains in power. From this perspective, the time to search for alternative solutions had come.

Washington, meanwhile, sees France as the chief culprit behind a premature move to end the sanctions regime and responds by accusing Paris of sacrificing the coalition's strategic interests for the sake of making a few francs. This jockeying between Paris and Washington is based more on a difference of tactics than of...