New Year Thoughts for 2004

Iraq Invasion Opened Pandora's Box

The dawning of the New Year is also a time for new wishes, both individual and collective ones. The latter are ones that originated in the events of the year 2003, a year that constitutes a watershed in the history of France, Europe, and the whole world.

The crucial event of 2003 was, without doubt, the USA's aggressive war against Iraq, waged in violation of international law. George W. Bush's argument that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction proved to be a lie, and one which the President of the United States has indirectly admitted. He now justifies the war by claiming that there was a risk that Iraq could have obtained weapons of mass destruction in the future. Although kept secret, the true grounds for the war are obvious: The desire to gain economic control of Iraq and to control the entire region by stationing US troops in Iraq.

Several countries, such as Germany and France, condemned the war. Their predictions seem to have come true, although the US forces quickly gained the upper hand, at the same time the invasion opened a Pandora's Box which will be difficult to close again so quickly. Even if Saddam Hussein's arrest changes something in the short run, it will not lead to any fundamental settlement in Iraq. One can only hope that the voices of reason and justice will not be silenced, since what is here at stake is the future of international relations. There is a clear difference between a unilateralism, based on power, and an international democracy, based on respect for sovereignty and inter-state co-operation, which serves the interest of the common good.

The Iraq affair has also demonstrated the limits of the European construction. Far from forming a united front, the major countries were divided into those who pursued a policy of independence, and those who joined with George W. Bush's America. The European Union did not participate in the discussion at all, and it was left to individual countries, such as France, Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy, to exercise their sovereignty when making decisions regarding the war. Last November the EU Stability Pact, which aimed at straitjacketing its members, failed because countries like France and Germany expressed that it was more important for them to be able to decide on their own economic policies rather than submit to the constraints of the EU. Furthermore, the failure of the Brussels summit, at which the EU constitution was to be ratified, showed to what extent of absurdity the European construction has grown.

The impossibility of coming to an agreement already demonstrates how an EU with 25 members will function in the future. Such a union, built on integration, would be completely incapable of functioning. The nations and peoples of Europe deserve better. We have to hope that in the light of this failure more and more people will open their eyes and that this awareness will save the Europeans and lead them to the only possible Europe that can exist, a Europe of realities, based on the free co-operation between sovereign and independent states.

Professor Jean-Paul Bled,
President of the Association for French Independence and Sovereignty, Paris