France prepares for war with Iran?

On Sunday 16 September, 2007 France's Bernard Kouchner said: "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war."

Calling the nuclear standoff "the greatest crisis" of present times, Kouchner said: "We will not accept that the bomb is manufactured ..." and hinted that military plans were being developed.

At a conference of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Austria, Mohamed ElBaradei said he saw no clear and present danger, and that talk of force was counter-productive.

What is the meaning of this? Can anyone in France please explain?

Whatever happened to a consensus EU foreign policy?

Calling Mr. Solana?

My Financial Times response to Mr. John Bolton's op-ed in the FT in which he requires Britain's PM Brown to choose between the EU and the U.S.

Time for realistic approach to Europe
By Sarwar Kashmeri
Published: August 3 2007 03:00 Last updated: August 3 2007 03:00
From Mr Sarwar A. Kashmeri.

Sir, The political centre of gravity in Europe shifted to the European Union decades ago. The US's "special-relationship" ought to have moved accordingly - from Britain to the EU. That it did not was a strategic error. To cede control of the future direction of this flawed attachment to Britain, as John Bolton suggests, would be a huge mistake.

The US needs to take command of its European foreign policy direction and make it clear to Britain that there will always be close cultural, business and sentimental connections to it, but going forward the US's political "special relationship" will be with the EU.

Speaking at the US Military Academy, West Point, in 1962, then secretary of state Dean Acheson presciently said: "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role. The attempt to play a separate power role, that is, a role apart from Europe, a role based primarily on a 'special relationship' with the United States . . . is about played out."

The 21st century will have a number of super-powers besides the US. These will surely include China, India and the EU. They will not include Britain.

It is time to inject a dose of reality to America's foreign policy towards Europe as Acheson had wanted to do more than 40 years ago.

Sarwar A. Kashmeri,
S Reading, VT 05062, US
(Fellow, Foreign Policy Association)
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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MR. JOHN BOLTON'S OP-ED IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF 31 JULY 2007

( I really found this to be a hugely pompous and un-diplomatic column; but such is the neoconservative thought process, and I suppose it is better to keep illuminating the opinions of the folks who engineered the disasters that daily unfold in Iraq and Afghanistan. sak )


Britain can’t have two best friends
By John Bolton
Published: July 31 2007 18:21 Last updated: July 31 2007 18:21

Gordon Brown’s first Washington visit as Britain’s prime minister has prompted tea-leaf reading about the strengths and weaknesses of the US-UK relationship. Momentarily diverting – and probably unavoidable – as the frenzy of speculation is, the real tests lie ahead. Actions ultimately trump semiotics in national security affairs.

Moreover, as contentious and important as Iraq is, it is a mistake to think that disagreements on that issue represent a fundamental change in the US-UK relationship. Tony Blair and President George W. Bush disagreed on global warming, as will Mr Brown and Mr Bush, but in neither case does the disagreement reflect a tectonic shift.

In fact, whether the “special relationship” grows stronger or weaker lies entirely in British hands. Americans across the political spectrum are content to keep it as it is and has been essentially since the second world war. That does not mean that the two countries always agree, nor has it ever meant that Britain is a poodle following America’s lead, self-flagellating Brits notwithstanding.

There are, however, more fundamental questions. Successive UK governments have taken Britain deeper and deeper into the European Union, all the while proclaiming that nothing fundamental about Britain’s status was changing. Britain is not unique in this regard. Europeans advocating an “ever-closer union” continually reaffirm that they are not changing anything fundamental about their sovereign control over foreign and domestic policy.

This attitude has been widespread, but the re-emergence of a European “constitution” – under whatever name – has brought Britain to a clear decision point. The long, slow slide into the European porridge has had few clear transition points. In the aggregate, however, the magnitude of changes in the status of the EU’s formerly Westphalian nation-state members can no longer be blinked away.

Thus, saying that the UK’s “single most important bilateral relationship” is with America, but is not comparable with UK membership of the EU, is a clever but ultimately meaningless dodge. Drop the word “bilateral”. What is Britain’s most important “relationship”? Does Mr Brown regard the EU as a “state under construction”, as some EU supporters proclaim, or not?
The answers to these questions are what Washington really needs to know. What London needs to know is that its answer will have consequences.

For example, why does a “union” with a common foreign and security policy, and with the prospect of a real “foreign minister” have two permanent seats on the UN Security Council and often as many as three non-permanent seats out of a total of 15 council members? France and Britain may not relish the prospect of giving up their unique status, but what is it that makes them different – as members of the “Union” – from Luxembourg or Malta? One Union, one seat.

Mr Brown cannot have it both ways (nor will President Nicolas Sarkozy), in part because many other EU members will not let the matter rest. Of course, the Security Council permanent seat itself is not the real issue – it is the question of whether Britain still has sovereignty over its foreign policy or whether it has simply taken its assigned place in the EU food chain.

Consider also the US-UK intelligence relationship. Fundamental to that relationship is that pooled intelligence is not shared with others without mutual consent. Tension immediately arises in EU circles, however, when Britain advocates policies based on intelligence that other EU members do not have. How tempting it must already be for British diplomats to “very privately” reveal what they know to European colleagues. How does Mr Brown feel about sharing US intelligence with other Europeans?

Finally, there is Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, which will prove in the long run more important for both countries than the current turmoil in Iraq. Here the US has followed the EU lead in a failed diplomatic effort to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons. If Mr Bush decides that the only way to stop Iran is to use military force, where will Mr Brown come down? Supporting the US or allowing Iran to goose-step towards nuclear weapons?

I will wait for answers to these and other questions before I draw conclusions about “the special relationship” under Mr Brown. But not forever.


The writer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was US ambassador to the UN in 2005-06. His book, Surrender Is Not an Option, will be published in the US in November
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

An Evolving Union: A conversation with European Commission Vice President Margot Wallström

The Foreign Policy Association and Sarwar Kashmeri, FPA Fellow and author of America and Europe after 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide are pleased to announce the launch of a special series of interviews celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which laid the foundations of the European Union. This unprecedented series kicks off with a discussion between Kashmeri and European Commission Vice President Margot Wallström. Wallström speaks of the evolution of the European Union, what it means to young Europeans today and the challenges presented by its complexities to U.S. policymakers. The series will continue in September with conversations with other officials of the European Commission and member states.

Click here to listen to a podcast of the conversation between Kashmeri and Commissioner Wallstrom.

Growing Up In An Evolving European Union

The EU is arguably the most important political development of the last half century. But it is also a bonding of cultural thought, an acknowledged success at eliminating the brutal wars that had savaged Europe for centuries, and an economic success story. The generation that built the EU is fast giving way to a new generation of Europeans that grew up in a borderless Europe with its single currency, European parliament, and a sense of Europeaness that none of its forebears has ever had before.

I had the pleasure of listening to four bright, articulate young Europeans discuss their views and experiences growing up in an evolving EU at a wonderful event organized by the University of Vermont's Global Village and European Studies Program.

We are all Europeans today!

Around a quarter of a century ago, one of my favorite magazine (woops! sorry, newspaper), The Economist's, cover showed the stars from the EU flag all crashed on the ground. As I recall it was the breakup of the European Currency Rate Mechanism. All was lost, the single market dreams were over. Well they were not, the stars rose back up again and we stand at the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Bravo.

Happy Birthday EU--we are all Europeans today.

US & EU should focus on light bulbs!

I've long been of the opinion that it will be easier to renegotiate a new transatlantic-alliance if we approach the process as a series of projects, each designed to achieve a tangible result, rather than a big bang to pull the erstwhile allies together again. That was the successful Schuman approach to create the EU from nation states that had fought each other for centuries.

Here is a project that should have wide support on both sides of the Atlantic: The elimination of incandescent light bulbs on both sides of the Atlantic.

These are the light bulbs that most of us use; they were invented in the 19th. century and are very energy inefficient. The EU has just decided to phase them out by 2009. This will save EU citizens billions of euros in fuel bills per year, and also 20 million tons of carbon emissions.
Among the manufacturers of light bulbs that have agreed to this EU initiative is General Electric, headquartered in the U.S.

So here is my suggestion: President Bush should send a Cabinet Secretary to Brussels and join the EU project to banish these old Victorian era bulbs in the EU and America. Elimination of incandescent light bulbs will conserve a signifiant amount of energy, reduce carbon emission, and generate transatlantic goodwill.

If a salve is needed to soothe U.S. anti-green conservatives: Australia, that stalwart American ally, this year passed a law to ban the old light bulbs by 2009, in fact it was Australia's decision that inspired the EU.

It is, as they say in America, a no-brainer.

EU-US single market moves ahead?

The US and EU could set a date for the creation of a transatlantic trading zone at a summit in April 2007, the Financial Times reported a few days ago. This would be progress indeed, and is a tribute to the strategic thinking of Germany's Chancellor Merkel who proposed this initiative and has moved it to the top of the transatlantic agenda.

As the the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has succinctly put it: "The EU and US are each other's main trading partners. Our economies represent 58 percent of Global GDP and 37 percent of world trade....a genuine transatlantic marketplace could increase GDP in both the EU and the US by more than 3 percent." The American ambassador to the the EU declared that the US President and his cabinet are politically committed to this project.

The political relationship between the EU and the US is in intensive care, continued efforts to strengthen the business ties will buy the politicians on both sides time to re-discover the importance of the transatlantic alliance.

2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome that began the powerful European common market. Let's celebrate by initiating concrete steps to move ahead with a transatlantic common market.