georgeob1 wrote:
You and Craven are perhaps suggesting that France and Germany became convinced that Bush's policy would lead to disaster, and therefore tried to steer us away from it, or at least to protect themselves from the awful consequences they saw coming if we acted against their advice.
Not really, in fact I don't think they predicted any disaster and before the war I saw little withing the realm of possibility that could turn it into a disaster.
What I contend they did, was simply try to stop a superpower from waging an unprovoked war. Earlier you implied that you disagree that it was not provoked and in some sense it's true. But in some sense it's true that there has never been an unprovoked war and then it comes down to whether the "provocation" justified a war.
IMO, Germany and France simply did not want to rubber stamp what they considered an unjustified war. Nowhere did I state that they were predicting disaster. That is not an opinion I hold.
Quote: This is a variation on what was suggested earlier, namely that the overwhelming sympathy for America that followed 9/11would have certainly led the Europeans to actively support us had we only treated them with more consideration and been less aggressive and expressive of our willingness to act alone if necessary.
Seems you misunderstood what I'd earlier contended. I
do not believe that they would have supported the war. I think the war helped erode the goodwill but never meant to imply that the goodwill would have garnered support for the war.
My take is that the war was something that they would have rejected no matter what level of sympathy existed. And I contend that the war was so strongly believed to be unjustified by the world that the decision to wage it dissipated the sympathy.
It's a bit funny that you think I was arguing that some statements eroded the political capital that could have been used to support the war. I think the war was simply unsupportable to the majority of the world. It was sold as pre-emption and there was nothing to pre-empt. I think the strong feelings about this has made people the world over hate America.
In some of the nations that are the most friendly to America the street has been furious.
You keep trying to make like this was just a matter of nation's and their self interest but that neglects the fact that there are millions and millions of people who were fundamentally opposed to the war and had no personal interest in it.
Quote:As I have suggested the governing self interest is more likely to be the intent of France and Germany to lead the EU in the development of an independent (of the USA) political and economic strategy in the decades ahead.
I agree with this, and I am hoping the EU does well to counter the unchecked power of the US.
Quote:The opposition to Bush's policies was played out by France particularly (and Germany as well) in the most public and politicized way possible - precisely the tactics least likely to persuade us to change course and most likely to create the greatest impact for Europe, led by France and Germany, as the counterweight to the United States in the world's political arena. That suggests something about motive.
I think any astute observer would have noted that there was no option to change our minds. I would have betted my life that the war was a fait accompli very early in the campaign. What you interpret as deliberately taking measures that would not change the US's mind I interpret as recognition that the US was going to do it with or without them and their refusal to rubber stamp it.
The choice posed to them was "rubber stamp the war or be rendered irrelevant" and their reply was that to rubber stamp an unprovoked invasion would already render them irrelevant and that they didn't plan to be quiet about it just because they lacked the power to stop it.
Quote:Both countries had significant economic stakes in the future of Saddam's regime. Outside of Russia, France has been the principal supplier of arms to Iraq for many years. Iraq had billions in debt owed to France.
This is something that war supporters often point to to try to cast the opposition to the war as financially motivated. It's a nice sounding rhetorical argument because it demonizes France and makes the opposition sound like a pretext about money. But the people of France opposed the war without having an individual stake in it. Were they all supposed to have been concerned with the chump change as well?
Over 100 nations did not support the war till it was already in motion. They did not have a financial interst so perhaps there were elements beyond self interest that generated some opposition?
It's convenient to the war supporters that the major opposition to the war had a financial stake in it but to point to it as motivation for their opposition is demonstratably false.
The US repeatedly offered our guarantee that their economic concerns would be fully addressed if they supported the war. They refused.
Just like I consider it false to say the US went to war for Iraqi oil (when lifting sanctions would ahve accomplished as much) I consider it false to say that the objection to the war was financially motivated (as we would have guaranteed the financial interests so if that was all they would have gone along).
The US agreed to sell oil to nations that were illegally buying oil from Iraq at the prices they had been getting. We were shopping around for support and if cash is the alleged motivation we were both offering cash and guarantees for the support.
In short if cash was the motivation they would just as easily have gone along with the war as we were willing to protect the financial interests of anyone who supported the war.
Quote:in addition just a few years ago a French consortium signed a contract for the development of the huge oil reserves in northern Iraq. If the regime were to fall both the debt and the contract would be lost.
This is not true George. The US made clear overtures to all who had an economic stake in Iraq. While trying to sell the war the US made it very clear that the economic concerns of Iraq's creditors would be addressed.
If France had supported the war the US would have granted France the contracts needed to protect their interests. This was placed on the table several times.
Quote:Both France and Germany had been lobbying hard in the Security Council for a complete end to the sanctions against Iraq for several years prior to 9/11.
This is another false claim. The majority of the world viewed the sanctions as detrimental to the average Iraqi civilian, this was a position shared by the US. Russia was the key opponent to the US/Brit-proposed "smart sanctions" and the rest were happy to extend the status quo. Your claim is made fictitious by your use of the word "completely". Yes, they opposed the new, US-proposed sanctions. But most of the world did and most of the world did not have a financial interest in Iraq.
The US was using its veto power on the sanctions committee to veto contracts for several basic items. Things like pencils. The US prevented pencils from entering Iraq citing "dual use" concerns in just one infamous case and the US vetoed ambulances and more.
The sanctions were absurd and even the US recognized it. The US wanted them changed as did every nation on earth. The difference was just in what changes, France and Germany were not trying to have them "completely" removed as you allege. they were simply responding to the nearly universal perception of the sanctions as being unecessarily delibating to the Iraqi civilian.
That is a position the US shared.
Quote:After we raised the WMD and intervention issues they suddenly decided sanctions and Han Blix were the needed solution. Odd.
It's not odd to me. They didn't want the US to wage a war under the guise of pre-emption when there was nothing to pre-empt. Sanctions were preferable. Heck, almost anything was preferable at that point.
In any case this is yet another false claim. You will not be able to provide any evidence of this decision that you use as factual basis.
Quote:I can't prove this analysis is correct any more that others can prove the alternatives. However both history and human nature strongly suggest this is correct.
I agree. But the more important part is that you can't prove most of the "facts" you used in your analysis. I
can prove that several of your claims are incorrect. It would be tedious and it's not going to make a difference in your opinion but that doesn't change that you based this on several demonstratably false claims.