Former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin,
after warning
the Bush Administration that France would veto a U.N. Security
Council
resolution authorizing war against Iraq. Today, Villepin is asking for one.
France and the
West Must Help Middle East 'Choose Life Over Death' (Le Monde, France)
"The borders of the Sykes-Picot era have been swept away.
Post-colonial and Cold War political models are obsolete. Shiites and Sunnis
are confronting one another and minorities are exposed to ethnic cleansing in all
its forms. … We are at the dawn of a decisive moment when the region swings to
one side or the other. Our role is to help it as best we can to choose life
over death. … Today, the resort to unilateral strikes is not a
solution. The action cannot
be taken without a U.N. resolution. We must not continually repeat
the same mistakes. Let us remember that even without
American unilateral intervention in 2003, there would not have been such a
boulevard for totalitarian forces in Iraq."
It seems that with every passing day, more appalling
butchery is reported than the day before. Hundreds of thousands of eastern
Christians, with whom France has a long history, are threatened with death and
have taken flight under terrible conditions. Today women, children and old
people are dying of thirst in the Iraqi desert for no reason other than that
they are Christian or Yazidi. Over the last eleven years, the religious
diversity that has enriched Iraq for centuries has been eliminated. France has
a duty to speak out and act. Again and again because of its own history of
trial and hardship, it bears the message of human rights.
I
said it last month: With the lightning victories of the Islamic State of Iraq
and Levant (ISIL), identity poison, like the worst
venom, in no time at all attacks the whole organism. If we want to fight
this threat, we have to try to understand, and battle it together,
methodically.
LIFE
OR DEATH?
This is by no means an immemorial clash of
civilizations, or between Islam and Christianity. This is not the tenth crusade
- because it is too easy to always believe yourself in the right. It is nothing
more than the ageless battle of civilization against barbarism. This a major
and complex historical event, linked to national independence, globalization
and the "Arab Spring." The Middle East is facing a crisis of
modernization with an existential character, which is altering so many of the
social and political relationships that the old divisions have awoken.
The borders of the Sykes-Picot era have been
swept away. Post-colonial and Cold War political models are obsolete. Shiites
and Sunnis are confronting one another and minorities are exposed to ethnic
cleansing in all its forms. In a word, Islamism is to Islam what fascism was to
the national ideal in Europe - a monstrous double, out of control, riding on
the back of the archaic and modernity, imaginary archaic and medieval ideas
communicated as propaganda through the latest technology. It will take the
Middle East another generation to achieve its own peaceable modernity, but
until then it needs to be on guard to nihilist temptations and civilizational
suicide. We are at the dawn of a decisive moment when the region swings to one
side or the other. Our role is to help it as best we can to choose life over
death.
The appeal to history only makes sense if it opens new
pathways. What lessons can we draw from this analysis? First, it is not
pointless, and that no dialogue is possible with organizations the crime of
which is not just the means, but the end. They are, indeed, prepared for the
worst, because that is what gives them disproportionate power over the entire
world. They are drawing a picture. They are primarily about image. The urgency
for the international community is to come to the aid of suffering civilians,
notably by creating humanitarian corridors to evacuate the Christians of Iraq.
At the same time it is a matter of listening to and dealing with credible
partners, alongside and at the margins of these movements, to the claims they
are making, for example, about the Iraqi-Sunni sense of humiliation.
The second lesson is that Islam is not the cause, but the
pretext and ultimately the victim of this collective hysteria. Muslims today
look on with dread at the name for which these abominable crimes are being
perpetrated.
The third lesson is that the solution is political. It is on
this point that today we must insist on receiving an answer. It is on this
ground that the jihadists of the Islamic State are weak.
The foremost political issue here, as always, is unity and the law that the international community should embody. Force is only a stopgap to prevent the worst. It must be timely. And be aware that this is what the jihadists want to ennoble their fight and radicalize people against the West which is still suspected either of crusades, or colonialism. Which is why resorting to unilateral strikes today is not a solution. Action cannot take place without a U.N. resolution. Let’s not keep making the same mistakes. Let’s remember that without American unilateral intervention in 2003 [video below], Iraq would not have been such a superhighway for totalitarian forces. The strikes should be structured around a U.N. Security Council resolution and supported by the major countries in the region. This is also about thinking ahead and strengthening the countries most threatened by the oil-stained ground won by the jihadists, Jordan, the linchpin of the Arabian Peninsula, and Turkey, already politically shaky and now subject to an influx of refugees from Syria and Iraq.
The second issue is that it is not so much the fanatical
groups as it is the masses that they could bring to unite and mobilize, both by
fear of a greater danger, as is the case for certain tribal chiefs, and by
hatred, as is the case with local Sunni powers. It is a matter of following a
methodical policy to disassociate the various factions that constitute the
current set-up in Sunni territory. What was achieved last month by the
al-Maliki government? Nothing. It remains a sectarian
and narrow-minded power that patiently waits for Tehran and Washington to be
forced to take action for lack of any other alternative. It remains and always
will be pressure on the al-Maliki government that must be applied so that
strikes don't end up like the thrusts of fencing swords into sand. From this
moment we need an inclusive government composed of all peaceable elements of
Iraqi society. A program of community inclusion in the army and government is
needed to stop the vicious circle of frustration and hatred.
SAUDIS SHOULD QUIT
GAME OF DESTRUCTION
The issue, again, is to have the courage to say out loud
that it is funding that nourishes the Islamic State. It now has significant
resources of its own, extorting money from the population, stockpiling gold
reserves or appropriating oil fields. That funding must dry up. However, the
flow of money must also be cut off from the silent partners without whom the
Islamic State is nothing. In a profoundly tormented Middle East, there are today
conservative forces, individuals or groups, sometimes rooted in society,
sometimes on the margins, who are agitating for the worst, driven by fear of
losing power and afraid of innovative and democratic ideas. Saudi Arabia and
the other Gulf monarchies must be told to quit this game of destruction,
because their dynasties will be the first victims of the jihadism
sweeping the Arabian Peninsula, and because there is no alternative apart from
the current traditional powers. Whether out of geopolitical rivalry or
political conviction, these countries must stop fanning the flames of the
Middle East. France can work on her points of leverage in the region, notably
on Qatar, and lobby accordingly.
The third policy challenge is to prevent the double-bluff
game played by states which, in the politics of the worst kind, imagine there
is always a means of consolidating a particular advantage. Turkey must clarify
its position in the region and support a balanced Iraq with a stable Kurdish
component by fighting with all its power against the networks of the Islamic
State, notably by using its territory as an access route. None of the nation
states in the region today is following an effective policy of simplicity,
clarity and urgency, and that includes Iran and Egypt. Confronted with a peril
that threatens to wipe them all out, it is time to put an end to all petty
ulterior motives.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
The time for an effort in regional reconstruction has come.
Make no mistake: the Middle East for decades to come is being designed. It is a
strategy and a long-term action plan that is essential, involving all of the
stakeholders in the region. The process of negotiation on Iranian nuclear
proliferation is crucial for the establishment of a peaceful Iran in the region.
The only answer today is a regional conference that will allow us to move
forward on all the major strategic, economic and political issues, from oil to
the sharing of water resources.
France is right to raise its voice through François
Hollande. She is right to have chosen the path of the United Nations. She must
today, however, set out the clearly, the route, the means and the milestones
for her actions.
*Dominique de Villepin is a former prime minister and foreign minister
