Posted on 04/26/2003 6:17:37 PM PDT by MadIvan
PRESIDENT George Bush was characteristically blunt. President Jacques Chirac of France should not expect an invitation to visit the United States in the near future.
"I doubt he’ll be coming to the ranch any time soon," Bush said in a television interview, referring to the ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he plays host to world leaders.
Bush’s comments come as US anger over France’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq shows no sign of abating.
Indeed, in Washington the fashionable insult of the day is to declare, as one White House official did of Democrat presidential hopeful John Kerry, that a person "looks French".
Although Bush’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, was quick to deny reports that the president would snub France by staying in Switzerland during the forthcoming G8 summit in the French Alps, each day brings fresh evidence that the US has neither forgiven nor forgotten France’s opposition to the war.
Last Tuesday, Colin Powell said bluntly that France would have to pay the price for that opposition. Powell was incensed, and felt personally betrayed, at being ambushed by the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, at the United Nations when France said it would veto a second UN resolution authorising military action in Iraq, regardless of any diplomatic moves the US and Britain might make.
Then on Thursday a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that "in light of current international circumstances, and the demands on the department of defence’s resources, US participation in the Paris Air Show will be more limited than in previous years".
Although the decision to scale back the US presence at the world’s leading air show risks costing American aircraft manufacturers business, it reiterates the message that France remains in the diplomatic doghouse.
"It is a problem," said a senior administration official. "How much of a problem and how lasting it is going to be depends on the French."
State department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "It’s more than philosophical. Potentially, it will affect how some decisions are made in the future."
Although officials declined to specify what those decisions might be, it is widely believed that Washington will seek to marginalise France’s influence in Nato. One way to do that will be to use the alliance’s Defence Planning Committee, of which France is not a member, to make decisions.
American scepticism over French policy is likely to be increased next week when Chirac holds talks with Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg to discuss means of increasing Europe’s defence capability.
The US believes such talks are "not helpful" and risk diverting attention from the transatlantic alliance. Some US officials believe France’s preference for an expanded European Union defence capability indicates that Paris’ desire to construct an alternative to Nato, and to US hegemony, is stronger than its desire for rapprochement with Washington.
In his television interview, Bush said: "Hopefully, the past tensions will subside and the French won’t be using their position within Europe to create alliances against the United States, Britain or Spain or any of the new countries that are the new democracies in Europe."
The House of Representatives’ former speaker, Newt Gingrich, said: "This is a deliberate strategy by France to create a countervailing force in the world, and we need to deal with it as an honest, deliberate strategy, and as the most powerful nation in the world, we need to orchestrate an appropriate response to being challenged."
State department officials stress, however, that the transatlantic differences over Iraq should not obscure the ongoing co-operation between French and American security agencies in the war on global terrorism.
But differences remain over Iraq. Washington is determined to resist any suggestion that French companies should be allowed a share of the reconstruction contracts now that Saddam’s regime has gone.
Indeed, some neo-conservative hawks go further, arguing that France provides a template for how not to reconstruct Iraq. As Richard Perle, the former Pentagon advisor, remarked: "The last thing the Iraqis need is French statism or German labour practices."
In the highly influential neo-conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes writes: "The United States has allowed France to exert influence that far exceeds its economic or military strength."
An opinion poll released on Friday found that 43% of US consumers were either considering or had already started boycotting French products. However, so far major French companies said they had not felt the adverse consequences of any such boycott.
That experience is not borne out by French-related businesses in the US, however. According to Bill Deutsch, who imports more French wine than any other US retailer, sales have declined by as much as 10% in the past two months.
Were he not a teetotaller, it’s a safe bet that Château Pétrus would not be offered to visiting dignitaries at Bush’s Crawford ranch.
How about the airline "JetBlue" ordering $6.4 BILLION worth of aircraft from the French Airbus Industries? This, when Boeing is reporting a half a billion dollar loss for the quarter.
If France is to pay a price for her treachery over the Iraq diplomacy debacle, we need to make sure that companies that chose French companies over U.S. ones have to pay a price as well. Do not fly on JetBlue!
A couple of nicely-restored World War II aircraft would make both a fine display and a good historical reminder.
France is not a true friend or ally to the United States!
True. France is more in the same category as China at this point; perhaps even worse. The euphemistic phrase "Strategic Competitor" has been used to describe China, and I'd say that it applies to France nicely as well. Everyone knows it really means "opponent", but in diplomat-speak.
France may be worse because while China seeks dominance in the Pacific, France is not as regionally focused. They just seek to oppose whatever the U.S. does in its own interest. You'd think they were holding a grudge over our saving their sorry arses from tyranny - twice.
That's exactly what I want them to do.
It may take a few years, but I'm sure they would get tax credits from the government to offset the expenses.
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