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France Criticizes U.S. Support For Sharon’s Repressive Policies
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| Vedrine highlighted European anger at US “simplism” |
PARIS, Feb. 6 (News Agencies) - France blasted the United States' "simplistic" foreign policy Wednesday, citing Washington’s support for “Sharon's purely repressive policies”, and revealing the degree to which Washington's single-minded drive to broaden its war on terror has triggered a rift with Europe.
"Today we are threatened by a simplism that reduces all the problems of the world to the struggle against terrorism, and is not properly thought through," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told France Inter radio.
Vedrine complained that the United States takes decisions "unilaterally, without consulting others, taking decisions based on its own view of the world and its own interests," AFP reported.
Taking a specific example of U.S.-European differences, Vedrine hit out at U.S. support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the pressure Washington is piling on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"European countries do not agree with the White House's Middle East policy and think it is a mistake to support Ariel Sharon's purely repressive policies," he said, branding the isolation of Arafat "another error".
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities, European leaders fell over each other to make pilgrimages to Washington and New York, and vowed solidarity with the United States in its determination to strike back.
But almost five months later, with Afghanistan's Taliban regime overthrown and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network harried and under pressure around the world, Europe is losing its taste for more and broader military action.
At the heart of Europe's reluctance to join the United States on the warpath is increasing frustration with what it sees as U.S. President George W. Bush's unilateralist refusal to allow foreign capitals in on decision-making.
Under what has become known as the Bush Doctrine, Washington now regards all foreign policy decisions as subordinate to the needs of its self-declared war on terrorism and all foreign states as either "with us or against us".
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to a congressional foreign relations committee, tried to play down the degree of anger in Europe.
"This suggestion that you sometimes see in intellectual circles that the United States is acting unilaterally and not consulting with our European partners simply could not be further from the truth," he said.
But Vedrine's broadside came at a time when many other senior Europeans have expressed disquiet over America's go-it-alone stance.
Bush used his State of the Union address last week to threaten Iran, Iraq and North Korea with military action if they did not end development of weapons of mass destruction, branding the trio an "axis of evil".
At home, his aggressive speech won broad bipartisan and public support. But in Europe the response was cool, disdainful even, and recalled the slightly snooty European response to the election of Bush, who was mocked as an inexperienced right-winger who had never visited London, Paris or Berlin.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who visited Washington last week, undiplomatically dismissed Bush's speech as grandstanding for a pre-election domestic audience.
"I thought the State of the Union speech was best understood by the fact that there are mid-term congressional elections coming up in November," Straw told British reporters.
Capturing the condescending tone of much of the European reaction to the speech, an aide to French President Jacques Chirac sniffed: "The rhetoric of good and evil is not suitable for the reality of today's world."
And at a security summit in Munich at the weekend, Ludger Volmer, a state secretary at the German foreign ministry, warned the United States not to try and use the excuse of its war on terror to "settle old scores" with Iraq.
For some in Washington, Europe simply has cold feet about building on the momentum of the successful U.S. campaign in Afghanistan and is bleating about decision-making to cover its unwillingness to take on anyone else.
At Munich, European defense chiefs were warned that if their budgets and technology would not allow them to fight as equals alongside U.S. forces, they could not expect to sit at the top table when plans were laid.
But French Defense Minister Alain Richard said France would not follow Bush's example in vastly increasing defense spending to cope with the new threats of the post-September 11 world.
"We do not share the analysis expressed by President Bush on the threats to international peace and security," he told the French parliament.
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