Mick Hartley

Michael Young at Lebanon’s Daily Star, on a return to the old ways:

[W]hile Bush and Sarkozy are closer than Bush and Jacques Chirac ever were, when it comes to the Middle East, Sarkozy’s France is going the way other European states are in detaching itself from Washington and from the implications of the Bush administration’s war on terror. That’s not to say there invariably is disagreement. Rather, the European-American relationship with regard to the Arab world and Iran is drifting back to what we had before 9/11, when the pursuit of national interests trumped any declared common effort to advance democracy and human rights while isolating repressive regimes and “rogue nations.”

Take the recent release by Libya of six foreign medics, most of them Bulgarians. This opened a Pandora’s Box of recrimination when it was suggested that France, which played a principal role in the liberation, had overseen a more sinister quid pro quo: the medics in exchange for Libya’s being allowed to buy weapons and a nuclear reactor from France. The French government insisted there had been no tradeoffs. Sarkozy was even more affirmative in denying a nuclear deal. However, Paris was forced to concede that a weapons deal had been agreed after the son of Libya’s dictator Moammar Gadhafi broke the story to the French daily Le Monde.

But what Seif al-Islam Gadhafi disclosed suggested more than just arms sales, which are allowed now that Libya is no longer under an international sanctions regime. He told Le Monde: “First, the agreement [with France] involves joint military exercises; we will be buying Milan anti-tank missiles from France to the order of 100 million euros, I think. Then there is a project for the manufacture of arms, and for the maintenance and production of military equipment. You know it’s the first arms supply deal between a Western country and Libya [since the sanctions ended].” […]

Still, it’s not all bad between Washington and Europe – nor is the US itself particularly consistent when it comes to dealing with autocrats, as it continues to bolster the regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Most European states are on the same page as the US in opposing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its rising power in the Gulf. On the Palestinian front, European governments have sided with Washington on isolating Hamas. In Lebanon, France may soon adopt measures similar to two White House Executive Orders denying travel to or blocking the property of individuals deemed to be undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty and democracy.

However, the more uniform rhetoric heard in the aftermath of 9/11 is now a memory. The Europeans are doing their own thing, and so is the US. What that means in practical terms is that it is once again acceptable to cajole despots if national interests mandate this. So whether your name is Gadhafi, Assad, Mubarak, or Abdullah, the moral of the story is: Enjoy the greater breathing space you now have to asphyxiate your own people.