Chill and Gloom Expected at the Anglo-French Summit

by Patrick Seale

Released: 2 Jun 2006

It is common knowledge that French President Jacques Chirac and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair don’t get on. They neither like each other nor trust each other. Beneath the surface pleasantries, their annual summit meeting, due to take place in Paris on 9 June, is unlikely to be a very cordial affair.

The French have not forgiven Blair for joining President George W. Bush’s war on Iraq -- in their view, a catastrophic misjudgment which has caused massive human and material destruction and has set back the cause of European integration in the crucial fields of defence and foreign policy.

Chirac now wants an answer to an urgent question: Where does Blair stand on Iran? If Bush were to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities, would Blair join in? Did he give Bush such a pledge on his recent visit to Washington?

Although he insists on keeping the military option on the table, Blair says he favours a diplomatic approach. Indeed, he is thought to have asked Bush to join Britain, France and Germany in negotiations with Tehran. This suggestion, however, has its critics within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Some British diplomats fear that if the United States joins the talks, the Europeans and the Russians would be marginalized, and the result could be an angry U.S.-Iran confrontation -- increasing rather than diminishing the danger of war. In that unfortunate event, how far would Blair be prepared to go?

An ominous clue to Blair’s thinking was the sacking of Jack Straw, his long-serving foreign secretary, allegedly because he offended the Americans by declaring that an attack on Iran would be “nuts” and simply “inconceivable.”

Margaret Beckett, Straw’s replacement at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, is considered a relative light-weight who would not dare oppose the prime minister on such a major policy issue. The same might be said of Britain’s new Defence Minister, Desmond Browne, a lawyer with little defence experience.

These Cabinet changes suggest that Blair wants unchallenged authority over questions of war and peace -- which is precisely what worries not only Chirac, but several other European leaders, including Spain’s José Luis Zapatero and Italy’s Romano Prodi.

Two aspects of Tony Blair cause particular anxiety in Europe. The first is the messianic tone of his speeches on the dangers of international terrorism and nuclear proliferation. His determination to stop Iran’s nuclear programme seems to have become a personal mission.

The second aspect is Britain’s dependence on the United States -- and hence its vulnerability to American pressure -- which, it is feared, might lead Blair to follow Bush into another military adventure.

A striking example of this dependence is Britain’s participation, as a junior partner, in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the world’s largest defence programme. Known as the F-35, the JSF is a highly-advanced, next-generation, multi-role fighter, built by Lockheed Martin of the U.S. In its present and future variants, it is expected to meet the main aircraft requirements of the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and the UK Royal Navy over the next 30 or 40 years. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore and Turkey have joined Britain in funding the plane.

But the vast $250 billion project has been plagued by delays, design problems, budget over-runs and also by the excessive weight of the proposed aircraft. The weight problem is crucial for the UK because, unlike the U.S. Air Force, the Royal Navy wants a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the plane to replace the Sea Harriers on British aircraft carriers. It has ordered 150 aircraft at $104m each.

London has been particularly offended by U.S. reluctance to transfer to the UK the codes used to access the avionics systems on board the fighters. In the absence of this technology transfer, Britain threatened to pull out of the project altogether, because knowledge of the codes is essential to modify, update and maintain the plane in the coming decades.

At their recent summit in Washington, Bush and Blair reached an agreement to allow Britain to retain “operational sovereignty” over the plane, but what this means in practice remains to be clarified before the partners in the project sign a Memorandum of Understanding later this year to fund the next stage of the aircraft’s development.

The dispute over the JSF has spilled over into other weapons systems. It is holding up the design of three aircraft carriers which Britain and France have agreed to build jointly -- two for the UK and one for France.

Another U.S. pressure point on Britain relates to plans by British Aerospace (BAE) to sell its 20 % stake in Airbus and invest the cash in U.S. defence companies. Here, too, U.S. agreement would be necessary.

The Trident missiles on Britain’s nuclear submarines are also dependent on U.S. technology. The United States has recently agreed to modernise these missiles, but there could be a hitch if the two countries fall out over Iran.

Another area of dependence lies in intelligence sharing. Britain and the United States work together in Echelon, a highly secretive, world-wide network, which can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes and e-mails anywhere in the world. Echelon is thought to intercept up to 3 billion communications each day. This is not a partnership Britain would wish to endanger.

How would Blair react then, the Europeans ask, if Bush were to ask him to join in an attack on Iran? Would he be able to say no?

The atmosphere at the coming Anglo-French summit is likely to be not only chilly, but also gloomy, because both Chirac and Blair are in big trouble at home. The British view is that Chirac, and his prime minister Diminique de Villepin, have been fatally weakened by street revolts and political scandals, and that France will be incapable of any major joint initiative before the 2007 election puts a new leader in the Elysée Palace.

The French, in turn, wonder how long Blair can cling to office in view of the great unpopularity of his Iraq policy. They puzzle over who might be their British interlocutor in two or three years’ time. Will it be Chancellor Gordon Brown or the new Conservative leader, David Cameron?

Tony Blair is thought to concede privately that the Iraq war was a mistake. British losses so far number 113 soldiers dead, while the cost to the British Treasury is estimated at close to £20 billion. These figures are relatively small compared with American spending of more than $300 billion and the loss of 2,500 soldiers killed in combat, and another 25,000 wounded so seriously that they will not fight again. But from a European perspective, the British contribution in men and treasure is considerable.

To limit the damage, Blair would like to reduce the number of British troops in Iraq from the current level of 8,000 to under 3,000 by the end of the year. He hopes this will silence his critics and free him from the wounding charge of being “America’s poodle.”

Blair needs a success to make the British public forget Iraq. He hopes it could be in Afghanistan, where Britain is taking command of the NATO stabilization force. By early July, Britain will deploy 5,000 troops in Afghanistan, together with combat helicopters and other heavy equipment. The recent Taliban revival, however, is unwelcome news as it suggests British troops may face some unpleasant surprises.

What to do about Iran remains the biggest puzzle facing Western leaders. As in the run-up to the Iraq war, the Europeans are once again having to wait on decisions made in Washington. At next week’s summit, Blair and Chirac will probe each other’s intentions but they will be able to do little more than agree to disagree.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

© 2006 Patrick Seale

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Released: 02 June 2006
Word Count: 1,294 words
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Topics:

Afghanistan

Africa

Arab World

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Europe

Iran

Iraq