Sulla guerra in Iraq
Raga', vi posto l'ultimo "commentary" di Wallerstein, visto che sul forum siamo spesso finiti a parlare di guerra, Usa, antiamericanismo ecc. credo che questo commentary cada proprio a fagiolo.
Anche il penultimo era interessante, ma non voglio spammare la caffetteria, chi e' interessato li trova qui http://fbc.binghamton.edu/106en.htm
in fondo alla pagina.
Leggete questo ora, e ditemi che ne pensate
Commentary No. 106 - Feb. 1, 2003
"France is the Key"
During the Second World War Winston Churchill said that the greatest cross he had to bear was the Cross of Lorraine (the symbol of Charles De Gaulle). After 1945, the United States came to feel that this had become its cross. France has consistently pursued a "Gaullist" foreign policy under all its postwar governments, whether led by De Gaulle, Gaullists, or anyone else. The essence of the Gaullist foreign policy is that France, while part and parcel of the "West," has asserted the right to its own views of how to achieve world order, and has insisted that the United States, as the most powerful Western country, has to take France's views into account. France, unlike any other of the allies of the United States, has always sought to refuse a "unilateralist" leadership by the U.S. in a meaningful way.
Over the past fifty years, the United States has tried everything it could to dissuade France from this attitude: sweet talk, forceful pressure, conspiracy, and huffing and puffing. Nothing the U.S. did seemed to change France's basic stance. When recently Donald Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed "old Europe," it was France he had uppermost in mind. In the past, the United States has counted on Germany to moderate France's views, or at least not to go along with her. It is thus with enormous displeasure that the Bush administration has observed the Schroeder/Fischer turn in German foreign policy. The U.S. hawks feel betrayed.
So, it is particularly galling to the U.S. that today France is the key to whether or not the forthcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq will be considered "legitimate" by the majority of people in the western world, and even beyond it. If France goes along with the U.S., however reluctantly, the war will be considered in the world something sanctioned by the United Nations and therefore by that mysterious entity, the "world community." If France refuses to go along, she brings with her not only Germany but Russia, China, Canada, and Mexico - a powerful line-up. Japan has let it be known that it will follow "world opinion," meaning quite obviously only if the U.S. can get U.N. cover.
France even determines the position of Great Britain. In The Independent of Jan. 30, Donald Macintyre wrote an article with the headline "Blair is playing for high stakes, and he needs Chirac to come to his rescue." Macintyre discusses the difficulties Blair is having at home, the "threatened revolt" in the Labour Party, and says that whether it comes off or not depends on France's position. "It's not too glib to say that [Blair's] future may be decided not in the White House, nor in No. 10 [Downing Street, the residence of the British Prime Minister], but in the Elys‚e [Chirac's official residence]."
What gives France this power? It is certainly not France's moral rectitude. France is as willing as the United States to send troops to defend its interests. Its current intervention in the C“te d'Ivoire, and its current difficulties there as a result of this intervention, are testimony to France's continuing role as a mini-imperial power in Africa. Nor is it because France is somehow anti-American in its inner soul. No doubt there is a good deal of anti-American sloganeering in France (but then there is a good deal of anti-French sloganeering in the United States). Nevertheless, in general, the French (both elites and ordinary people) find much to appreciate in the United States, remember the U.S. role in the two World Wars with gratitude, and share most basic values and most basic prejudices with the United States.
What gives France this power is the sense, throughout the world, that the United States is often, as we say in good American slang, "too big for its britches." And this is especially true now that the hawks have taken over the U.S. government. France's resentment at this, France's desire to limit the effects of U.S. arrogance, is shared just about everywhere in the world, with very few exceptions. So when France resists U.S. pressures, as they are now doing, they are cheered on in private by all the governments who don't dare do the same or don't dare to do it quite as loudly - like Egypt or Korea or Brazil, or indeed Canada.
Actually, the U.S. government is aware of France's political power. This is why Colin Powell was able to convince Bush to go the United Nations in the first place, and why the U.S. is coming back to the United Nations next week to present some "evidence" about Saddam Hussein. The U.S. doesn't believe that this "evidence" is what will convince anyone. Rather the U.S. believes that presenting the evidence will give France the excuse to follow what the U.S. government thinks are France's economic interests. The reasoning of the U.S. administration, about which they talk in the press almost openly, is that France will say to itself the following: 1) The U.S. will go into Iraq no matter what. 2) The U.S. will win easily. 3) If France sends troops, however unimportant militarily, France will be allowed to participate in the division of the spoils (oil); but if France stays out, she will be excluded.
The U.S. hawks are thus making a "crude Marxist" analysis of France's foreign policy - a one-to-one short-term correlation between economic gain and political position. But crude Marxism never works, because nothing is one-to-one and the short-term is, as Fernand Braudel said, "dust." The problem, seen from France's point of view, and more particularly from Chirac's point of view, is posed quite differently. First of all, French public opinion (as all of west European opinion) is very largely opposed to the war and highly skeptical of U.S. motives, both short-term and long-term. The French left has lined up solidly against the war. The extreme right, for other reasons, has done so as well. And the French conservative party in power, the UMP, is split down the middle between those who buy the U.S. argument and favor a "Blairite" foreign policy and those who remain "Gaullist" in spirit.
Chirac has therefore kept his options open. He has to weigh the political consequences internally. If he makes a mistake, it could have a long-term negative effect both on the future of his party, which he has just recently managed to consolidate into a powerful force, and on France's efforts to create a strong and independent Europe. Secondly, Chirac is not at all certain of a swift U.S. military victory. Too many military figures around the world are skeptical, and they probably include some of the top French military. Thirdly, Gaullism has worked thus far, and Gaullism has always involved a delicate balance. France does not want to cut itself off from the U.S. But for once France is scarcely isolated in its resistance to U.S. action. This doesn't seem the moment to abandon a Gaullist stance.
The United States, as could be expected, is playing all its cards. It has lined up five of the present fifteen members of the European Union to say in a collective letter that they support the U.S. position. Of course, these five governments had already said the same in effect. But the joint letter is meant as pressure on France. In effect, the U.S. is trying to convince the French that if they don't go along, the U.S. will actively try to break up Europe. The U.S. has a second threat in its arsenal. If France's "soft power" is its incarnation of a worldwide discomfiture with U.S. unilateralism, its "hard power" is its veto in the Security Council. So, the U.S. is saying that if the U.S. doesn't get the backing it wants from the United Nations, it will marginalize the role of the Security Council and thereby reduce France's "hard power." But of course the veto power of France is of not much use if France can never use it, for fear that the Security Council would become irrelevant.
The U.S. thinks France needs the U.S. badly. It may however well be the case that it is in fact the U.S. that needs France badly. Whatever France's decision, the ultimate consequences may in part be determined by the actual war. A war easily won will tend to reward all those who went along with the U.S. A war that drags out will no doubt punish all those who went along with the U.S. However, a war unilaterally won, even if won quickly, may hurt as much as help the U.S. A war "multilaterally" will do less damage to the U.S. position. Nelson Mandela warns the U.S. it is heading the world towards a holocaust. The hawks are absolutely deaf.
The fact is that, as a result of its Gaullism, France is the only country in the world today that can have any significant impact on the U.S. geopolitical position - not Great Britain, not Russia, not even China. This is not because France is so strong, but because she pushes consistently for a multipolar world and thereby incarnates a strong world force. That France would herself be a direct beneficiary of such a geopolitical transformation is far less important to most people in most countries than the fact that France might succeed to some degree to create something they all want. We shall soon know how France plays its cards. And the whole world will feel the difference.
Immanuel Wallerstein
Anche il penultimo era interessante, ma non voglio spammare la caffetteria, chi e' interessato li trova qui http://fbc.binghamton.edu/106en.htm
in fondo alla pagina.
Leggete questo ora, e ditemi che ne pensate
Commentary No. 106 - Feb. 1, 2003
"France is the Key"
During the Second World War Winston Churchill said that the greatest cross he had to bear was the Cross of Lorraine (the symbol of Charles De Gaulle). After 1945, the United States came to feel that this had become its cross. France has consistently pursued a "Gaullist" foreign policy under all its postwar governments, whether led by De Gaulle, Gaullists, or anyone else. The essence of the Gaullist foreign policy is that France, while part and parcel of the "West," has asserted the right to its own views of how to achieve world order, and has insisted that the United States, as the most powerful Western country, has to take France's views into account. France, unlike any other of the allies of the United States, has always sought to refuse a "unilateralist" leadership by the U.S. in a meaningful way.
Over the past fifty years, the United States has tried everything it could to dissuade France from this attitude: sweet talk, forceful pressure, conspiracy, and huffing and puffing. Nothing the U.S. did seemed to change France's basic stance. When recently Donald Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed "old Europe," it was France he had uppermost in mind. In the past, the United States has counted on Germany to moderate France's views, or at least not to go along with her. It is thus with enormous displeasure that the Bush administration has observed the Schroeder/Fischer turn in German foreign policy. The U.S. hawks feel betrayed.
So, it is particularly galling to the U.S. that today France is the key to whether or not the forthcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq will be considered "legitimate" by the majority of people in the western world, and even beyond it. If France goes along with the U.S., however reluctantly, the war will be considered in the world something sanctioned by the United Nations and therefore by that mysterious entity, the "world community." If France refuses to go along, she brings with her not only Germany but Russia, China, Canada, and Mexico - a powerful line-up. Japan has let it be known that it will follow "world opinion," meaning quite obviously only if the U.S. can get U.N. cover.
France even determines the position of Great Britain. In The Independent of Jan. 30, Donald Macintyre wrote an article with the headline "Blair is playing for high stakes, and he needs Chirac to come to his rescue." Macintyre discusses the difficulties Blair is having at home, the "threatened revolt" in the Labour Party, and says that whether it comes off or not depends on France's position. "It's not too glib to say that [Blair's] future may be decided not in the White House, nor in No. 10 [Downing Street, the residence of the British Prime Minister], but in the Elys‚e [Chirac's official residence]."
What gives France this power? It is certainly not France's moral rectitude. France is as willing as the United States to send troops to defend its interests. Its current intervention in the C“te d'Ivoire, and its current difficulties there as a result of this intervention, are testimony to France's continuing role as a mini-imperial power in Africa. Nor is it because France is somehow anti-American in its inner soul. No doubt there is a good deal of anti-American sloganeering in France (but then there is a good deal of anti-French sloganeering in the United States). Nevertheless, in general, the French (both elites and ordinary people) find much to appreciate in the United States, remember the U.S. role in the two World Wars with gratitude, and share most basic values and most basic prejudices with the United States.
What gives France this power is the sense, throughout the world, that the United States is often, as we say in good American slang, "too big for its britches." And this is especially true now that the hawks have taken over the U.S. government. France's resentment at this, France's desire to limit the effects of U.S. arrogance, is shared just about everywhere in the world, with very few exceptions. So when France resists U.S. pressures, as they are now doing, they are cheered on in private by all the governments who don't dare do the same or don't dare to do it quite as loudly - like Egypt or Korea or Brazil, or indeed Canada.
Actually, the U.S. government is aware of France's political power. This is why Colin Powell was able to convince Bush to go the United Nations in the first place, and why the U.S. is coming back to the United Nations next week to present some "evidence" about Saddam Hussein. The U.S. doesn't believe that this "evidence" is what will convince anyone. Rather the U.S. believes that presenting the evidence will give France the excuse to follow what the U.S. government thinks are France's economic interests. The reasoning of the U.S. administration, about which they talk in the press almost openly, is that France will say to itself the following: 1) The U.S. will go into Iraq no matter what. 2) The U.S. will win easily. 3) If France sends troops, however unimportant militarily, France will be allowed to participate in the division of the spoils (oil); but if France stays out, she will be excluded.
The U.S. hawks are thus making a "crude Marxist" analysis of France's foreign policy - a one-to-one short-term correlation between economic gain and political position. But crude Marxism never works, because nothing is one-to-one and the short-term is, as Fernand Braudel said, "dust." The problem, seen from France's point of view, and more particularly from Chirac's point of view, is posed quite differently. First of all, French public opinion (as all of west European opinion) is very largely opposed to the war and highly skeptical of U.S. motives, both short-term and long-term. The French left has lined up solidly against the war. The extreme right, for other reasons, has done so as well. And the French conservative party in power, the UMP, is split down the middle between those who buy the U.S. argument and favor a "Blairite" foreign policy and those who remain "Gaullist" in spirit.
Chirac has therefore kept his options open. He has to weigh the political consequences internally. If he makes a mistake, it could have a long-term negative effect both on the future of his party, which he has just recently managed to consolidate into a powerful force, and on France's efforts to create a strong and independent Europe. Secondly, Chirac is not at all certain of a swift U.S. military victory. Too many military figures around the world are skeptical, and they probably include some of the top French military. Thirdly, Gaullism has worked thus far, and Gaullism has always involved a delicate balance. France does not want to cut itself off from the U.S. But for once France is scarcely isolated in its resistance to U.S. action. This doesn't seem the moment to abandon a Gaullist stance.
The United States, as could be expected, is playing all its cards. It has lined up five of the present fifteen members of the European Union to say in a collective letter that they support the U.S. position. Of course, these five governments had already said the same in effect. But the joint letter is meant as pressure on France. In effect, the U.S. is trying to convince the French that if they don't go along, the U.S. will actively try to break up Europe. The U.S. has a second threat in its arsenal. If France's "soft power" is its incarnation of a worldwide discomfiture with U.S. unilateralism, its "hard power" is its veto in the Security Council. So, the U.S. is saying that if the U.S. doesn't get the backing it wants from the United Nations, it will marginalize the role of the Security Council and thereby reduce France's "hard power." But of course the veto power of France is of not much use if France can never use it, for fear that the Security Council would become irrelevant.
The U.S. thinks France needs the U.S. badly. It may however well be the case that it is in fact the U.S. that needs France badly. Whatever France's decision, the ultimate consequences may in part be determined by the actual war. A war easily won will tend to reward all those who went along with the U.S. A war that drags out will no doubt punish all those who went along with the U.S. However, a war unilaterally won, even if won quickly, may hurt as much as help the U.S. A war "multilaterally" will do less damage to the U.S. position. Nelson Mandela warns the U.S. it is heading the world towards a holocaust. The hawks are absolutely deaf.
The fact is that, as a result of its Gaullism, France is the only country in the world today that can have any significant impact on the U.S. geopolitical position - not Great Britain, not Russia, not even China. This is not because France is so strong, but because she pushes consistently for a multipolar world and thereby incarnates a strong world force. That France would herself be a direct beneficiary of such a geopolitical transformation is far less important to most people in most countries than the fact that France might succeed to some degree to create something they all want. We shall soon know how France plays its cards. And the whole world will feel the difference.
Immanuel Wallerstein
, anche 7-8 righe di breve riassunto? 
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