There is a sense that George Bush’s anger over European reluctance to embrace his War in Iraq may serve as the breaking point between old allies. The French are not just angry about Iraq. Top security officials here believe that the war on terrorism, as fought by the Bush administration, is a charade. A top French anti-terrorism officer told this reporter: “The Bush government’s reluctance to confront the Saudi Arabian Royal family over terrorist financing is at the heart of the failure to succeed in the terrorism war.” The French are genuinely convinced that Bush has given the Saudis a pass.
For French observers of President Chirac, there is a sense President Bush has fallen into a trap. “Chirac has ambitions to be the foreign policy spokesperson for all of the European Union, and because Bush has singled out France as his nemesis in Europe, Chirac’s prestige and influence has been enhanced in the EU,” a veteran French Senator said.
The French public believes Chirac speaks for most Europeans. Bush’s behavior simply reinforces the feeling here started by Secretary Rumsfeld’s grousing about the “Old Europe.”
What the corporate executives and French politicians were talking about in Paris was the realization that the EU did possess an economic engine that could rival that of the United States. The question was if Jacque Chirac could rally the rest of the EU into putting Europe forward as an alternative to America as the only superpower.
Bush successfully got the American contractors and the Pentagon to downscale their normally dominant presence here. Still, some American military pilots, mechanics and their deadly hardware represented the U.S. government.
Parked next to the ever-graceful and soon to be retired Concorde was a lethal looking F-16, a weaponized Blackhawk helicopter and a wide assortment of JDAM and other U.S. military representations, some of which were no doubt recently used to kill Iraqis. It was not a subtle display.
The American servicemen in charge of the hardware seemed to be spending more time flirting with visiting young French women than explaining the ins and outs of our war-tested hardware.
Down the tarmac, toward the endless corporate chalets used to wine and dine government officials and dealmakers, was the impressive Israeli display. Arms sales account for much of Israel’s foreign currency. The Israelis have been brilliant about taking U.S. military hardware, redesigning it, and marketing it as their own. Their partnership with China has expanded beyond a Chinese version of the Lavi and is moving into the hottest new realm: remote controlled drones that can kill.
Inside the big pavilions, hundreds of major and minor aerospace and weapons firms offered the latest technology to anyone with an end user certificate and cash. It was not the U.S.’s year at Le Bourget; European upstart Airbus outsold American Boeing 44 to 4. There were some warning signs here for Americans.
The European space program seems much more alive than our trouble- and accident-plagued program. The “Old Europe” that Rumsfeld made fun of has a combined GNP that rivals our own. The reality is their technical ability and economic power are being united by Bush’s perceived bellicosity on foreign policy. While the French are angry about the U.S.’s war on Iraq, they are even angrier about the U.S.’s reluctance to go after Saudi Arabia.
The French security experts, who are very good a tracking down terrorists, were happy the U.S. did not send a higher-ranking presence to Paris for the biannual air show. “It made security not as severe a problem. A lot of Senators, Generals and Admirals make tempting targets” one intelligence official said.
The lack of American domination at this year’s Air Show may just be the first hint of a policy by President Bush at rewarding our new partners. Part of the new crowd is Turkey. Bush’s friends in the Turkish government failed to convince the Turkish parliament to allow significant U.S. forces through Turkey. But, what the Turkish government did last week was even more worrying. The Turkish government had planned to add 1,600 Islamic clerics to the government’s payroll. Instead, the government budgeted for ten times that many. A mid-level French Foreign Ministry official said, “Perhaps President Bush should be more careful about picking new friends.”
