France's new president is falling over himself to be the fawning yes-man of America, writes Muqtedar Khan* After Tony Blair's retirement as Washington's poodle and Gordan Brown's stodgy refusal to fill in the vacancy, it appears that Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France, has volunteered for the job. Given the opposition to US foreign policy, particularly towards Iraq, by former French president Jacques Chirac and former foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, one cannot blame Washington for initially showing some hesitancy towards Sarkozy's application. But Sarkozy is a man capable of vision and initiative. He has seen a glorious future for himself as "the new poodle" and has gone after the job with great enthusiasm. He has embarked on a mission to convince Washington that France has not only a new president, but also a new moral conscience. He is sending loud signals that France's new posture is readiness to align and or subordinate its foreign policy to the most neo-conservative of Washington's many predilections. As soon as Sarkozy became president, he sent Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to Baghdad to express support for the US presence there. This was a gesture that surprised both Americans and Europeans. This was Sarkozy's first confidence-building measure. He has since upped the ante by banging the war drum against Iran with abandon. He has described Iran's nuclear enrichment programme as the crisis of our times and insists that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. If Iran does not give it up it will be bombed, he declared. Washington is no doubt pleased with this unexpected bonanza. Now they have added leverage inside the EU and can pressure Europe more easily to follow its lead. With France tamed, it will become increasingly difficult for China and Russia to stand up to US demands that the UN Security Council levy further sanctions against Iran. More importantly, if the poodle wannabe is willing to echo Washington's line with vehemence in EU and other international forums, President Bush's problematic foreign ventures may gain more legitimacy. But this is early days. Anti-Americanism runs deep in France and American contempt for France is not hidden in Washington. Former defense secretary Rumsfeld had dismissed France's international relevance with an offhand comment about "old Europe" and I have heard many senior officials refer to it as a Third World country with nuclear weapons. If Sarkozy, who is already being perceived as unpredictable and capricious, finds his overtures towards America affecting his approval ratings he may suddenly decide to change his approach to world politics. Tony Blair, the original poodle, subordinated Britain's interests and wisdom to Washington's ambitions and whims in the fond hope that someday he and Britain would have influence on American foreign policy. But the general consensus in Britain today is that he failed. Washington used him. He took Britain into war against Iraq, one that has neither made Britain safer nor Iraq a model democracy. By the time he resigned, one of Britain's most talented and charismatic prime ministers had become one of its most despised leaders. There is a lesson here for Sarkozy. As far as Iran's nuclear ambitions are concerned, first, by all accounts -- and including the CIA's -- it is many years away from nuclear weapons capability, so the threat is not as imminent as Sarkozy makes it out to be. Second, both former President Chirac and US General Abizaid have argued that an Iran with two or three nuclear weapons is not a threat to the US or Israel and can be deterred by the thousands of nuclear weapons stockpiled by the US and hundreds possessed by Israel. Most security experts argue that a nuclear Iran will not be a real threat. Yes, nuclear weapons may give it immunity from invasion and occupation, such as that suffered by Iraq, but it will not give it decisive offensive capabilities. As far as threats to Israel are concerned, we must not forget that it is a state with a more powerful air force than Britain and a secret nuclear arsenal estimated to be next only to the US and Russia. It is also about to receive $30 billion of US armaments. I doubt if France alone is capable of bombing Iran. France has not won a war on its own in over 100 years. French bravado and the warmongering of its new leaders is premised on the assumption that while the French will shoot their mouths off, the real shooting will be done by the US. The French are actually risking the lives of thousands of American soldiers stationed in Iraq and in the line of Iranian retaliatory fire just to look tough. Fortunately Sarkozy and his foreign minister stand alone in their eagerness for another invasion by the West of a Muslim country. Even in America, nobody except Senator Lieberman is eager to bomb Iran. Finally, France's own nuclear record is quite shameful. It is estimated that France has a stockpile of 350 nuclear weapons. It has conducted over 200 nuclear tests, polluting and poisoning our planet, and has a very dubious history of nuclear proliferation. It is suspected of clandestinely proliferating nuclear weapons technology to Israel. France is also in violation of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's that requires France to work in good faith towards complete nuclear disarmament. Washington has a new poodle for sure; I just hope that we do not have the makings of a new war. * The writer is an associate professor at the University of Delaware and senior non- resident fellow with the Saban Centre at the Brookings Institution.
