NYTimes.com Article: U.S. Officials Consider Ways to Punish France

This article from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by threehegemons@aol.com.


As Wallerstein suggested (and I seconded on one or another of these lists) the 
hawks will not consider this a win unless they can humiliate France.  Note this 
comes a day after France's genuine gesture of compromise around the sanctions 
issue.  Also note the way the Times does include the voice of an expert near 
the end who suggests this is a pretty stupid policy.

Steven Sherman

threehegemons@aol.com

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U.S. Officials Consider Ways to Punish France

April 23, 2003
By BRIAN KNOWLTON, 
International Herald Tribune 




 

WASHINGTON, April 23 - French officials responded brusquely
today to an assertion by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
that France would be made to suffer for its opposition to
the war in Iraq. 

Dominique de Villepin, Mr. Powell's French counterpart,
sounded a defiant tone in insisting that France would not
be bowed by American pressure or threats. 

"Throughout the Iraq crisis, France, along with a very
large majority of the international community, acted in
conformity with its convictions and its principles to
defend international law," Mr. Villepin said during a trip
to Turkey. "It will continue to do so in all
circumstances." 

Secretary Powell's comment on Tuesday, during a television
interview, came a day after a White House meeting aimed at
finding ways to punish France, which led the opposition to
the United States-led military attack against Iraq and
thwarted Washington's attempt to win United Nations support
to the move. 

Participants in the meeting reportedly considered actions
ranging from lessening French influence in NATO to
excluding the French from some international forums. "They
are trying to find ways to create alternative mechanisms
for dealing with the French, or rather without them, and
not just at NATO," Agence France-Presse quoted a senior
American official as saying. 

The meeting reportedly was chaired by Stephen Hadley,
deputy to the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice,
and the participants included deputies representing Vice
President Cheney's office, the Pentagon, and the State
Department. 

Mr. Powell spoke by telephone today to Mr. Villepin and
made it clear that France's opposition to the war would
have consequences, said the State Department spokesman,
Richard Boucher. But Mr. Boucher said that the France and
the United States remained allies and would continue to
cooperate "wherever we find it in our interest to do so." 

When asked during the television interview whether France
would face consequences over Iraq, Mr. Powell replied
simply, "Yes." He then added, "We have to look at all
aspects of our relationship with France in light of this." 

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said today that
it was no secret that relations between Washington and
Paris had been strained. Of Mr. Powell's comment, he said,
"The real surprise would have been if he'd said `no." 

While the ties had been "complicated," Mr. Fleischer said,
that President Bush "continues to believe that because of
our common values," the alliance between the two countries
will continue. 

It was not the first time Mr. Powell had said that Paris
might pay a price for opposing the United States' position
on Iraq. On March 9, after France had threatened to veto
any United Nations resolution authorizing a war against
Iraq, the secretary of state said that such a move would
"have a serious effect on bilateral relations, at least in
the short term." 

But his comments on Tuesday were the first such affirmation
since the war wound down, and it appeared to counter
suggestions that the two sides might now forge a pragmatic
relationship, however cool and businesslike, to permit
necessary cooperation. 

Some analysts said that while administration frustration
with France was understandable from Washington's viewpoint,
a punitive response might be short-sighted, given the
countries' complex range of common interests. 

Jeremy Shapiro, associate director of the Center for the
United States and France, at the Brookings Institution,
said that the administration's approach appeared to be "a
policy more of revenge and retaliation than of working
toward the future." 

Last week, President Jacques Chirac of France telephoned
President Bush - their first talk in two months - in what
was seen as a clearly conciliatory gesture; and earlier
this week, France, in a move that at first blush appeared
welcomed by the United States, conditionally supported an
end to United Nations sanctions on Iraq. 

The comments by Mr. Powell seemed to show that Washington
was hardly appeased. Some in the administration are
disdainful of what they see as a broader effort by Mr.
Chirac to limit, or supplant, American power. 

According to one account of the White House meeting,
participants concluded that punishing France in significant
ways without harming United States interests might not be
easy. 

But the American-French tensions have raised concerns in
Europe that tit-for-tat sanctions might spill over. 

In Brussels, a spokeswoman for the European Commission
noted that rules of international relations limited the
ways Washington could express its irritation. 

"I am sure that Colin Powell was not implying that any of
those rules would be broken," said the spokeswoman, Emma
Udwin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/23/international/worldspecial/23CND-FRANCE.html?ex=1052147069&ei=1&en=a3c912f1a27c5942



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