PARIS — You’ve got to hand it to France’s little big man, he
has a way of getting what he wants. Whether it be the presidency of
his country, a trophy wife, or generally punching above France’s
weight in international affairs, Nicolas Sarkozy pushes, inveigles,
argues and seduces until others let him have his way, if only to be
quit of him. This time he wanted to lead a George Bush-style
coalition of the willing into war with an Arab dictator. On
Saturday he got that too.
It was the first good week Sarkozy has had on the world
scene in a long time. For months he watched as the Arab Spring
spread across North Africa and the Middle East with tacit American
encouragement but no French involvement. When it began in Tunisia,
right in France’s ex-colonial backyard, Sarkozy wasn’t paying
attention and his administration was caught wrong-footed: his
foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, embarrassingly offered
France’s know-how in riot control to Tunisia’s corrupt President
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Then he was silent as the U.S. deftly
pressured Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down and allow
social and political reform. As the democratic virus infected
countries like Bahrain and Yemen, France’s diplomacy was
absent.
At home, too, Sarkozy was faltering. With the next
presidential election just a year away, his numbers in the 20s made
him the most unpopular president in the history of the Fifth
Republic. Poll after poll showed him losing to Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, the socialist leader whom he had exiled to Washington
as head of the International Monetary Fund in 2007, thinking to get
him off the French political scene. Worse, surprising surveys had
him beaten next year by Marine Le Pen, the articulate, charismatic
new leader of the right-wing National Front.
Then Libya caught his eye. Here were romantic bands of
ragtag rebels rising up against one of the world’s more obnoxious
dictators. Just across the Mediterranean. With the U.S. bogged down
in Afghanistan and unlikely to make a big move into what would be
its third conflict with a Muslim country in less than a decade. Who
wouldn’t want to side with him in a humanitarian crusade against
the despot?
Perhaps on the advice of Carla Bruni, his conduit to the
intellectual and art world, Sarkozy sought counsel from
Bernard-Henri Lévy. A dashing penseur-poseur-showman who likes to
be photographed with his shirt largely unbuttoned, Lévy advised him
to officially recognize the rebels’ National Transition Council as
a first step. This he did on March 10, receiving its members with
full honors at the Elysée Palace. The Libyan “revolution” could
only be carried out by Libyans themselves, he said then. He added,
significantly, that in any case there should be no NATO-led
operation against Muammar Gaddafi.
Next he maneuvered the United Nations Security Council to
a vote on the loaded question of whether to protect Libyan widows
and orphans. With his energetic new foreign minister Alain Juppé
doing behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and special pleading, the
Council voted the deliberately vague Resolution 1973 “to protect
civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack.” No
mention of regime change. Or of the fact that the “civilians” were
armed rebels attempting to overthrow the Libyan government. Of the
European members on the Council, only Germany refused to go along
with Sarkozy’s war, abstaining in the vote. (Chancellor Angela
Merkel is the only European Union leader who habitually stands up
to him and resists his pushy ways.)
However distasteful Gaddafi might be (Ronald Reagan
memorably called him the “mad dog of the Middle East”), however
much we would like to see him gone, the Supreme Guide of the Libyan
Revolution has been recognized for some 40 years as the legitimate
power in the country. Western leaders also tended to view him as an
ally against Al Qaeda.
Just three years ago, Sarkozy grandly welcomed him and his
400-person entourage — including 30 gaudily uniformed female
bodyguards — to Paris for a full-pomp, five-day, red-carpet state
visit. “Gaddafi is not perceived as a dictator in the Arab world,”
Sarkozy explained at the time, adding as further justification, “He
is the longest-serving head of state in the region.” To the
considerable discomfiture of many Parisians, he allowed Gaddafi to
pitch his Bedouin tent in the elegant gardens of an official guest
residence near the Elysée Palace. The visit concluded with
contracts with Gaddafi for some $4.25 billion worth of Airbus
airliners, fighter jets, air defense systems, and nuclear
technology to power a desalination plant.
That was then. Last week Sarkozy organized his next ploy,
an international summit in Paris on Saturday to implement the UN
resolution. The meeting was nothing but window dressing. Its main
event was the lining up of world leaders around Sarkozy on the
steps of the Elysée for a group photo. “France has decided to play
its part in history,” he summed up with all false modesty. “The
Libyan people need our aid and support. It’s our duty.” British
Prime Minister David Cameron mumbled something about having to
enforce “the will of the United Nations.” Hillary Clinton backed
away as far as she decently could, insisting, “We did not lead
this. We did not engage in unilateral actions in any
way.”
Hours after the photo op, French fighter jets were heading
for Libya, getting the jump on the U.S. and other coalition
members. Much of France went into a paroxysm of national pride as
television screens showed French fighter pilots gearing up, donning
helmets, fingering their service pistols, and heading out to the
hangars where their planes were waiting. As one commentator put it,
buttons fairly popping off his shirt front, “The Americans were
ahead of us in dealing with the revolution in Egypt, but this time
we’re taking the initiative. We’re clearly the leaders against
Libya.” Much was made of French planes striking first, while
British and Americans merely brought up the rear.
Notably absent was any mention of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization. Usually the official subcontractor to the UN
for military and peacekeeping operations, NATO was deliberately
bypassed by Sarkozy. “NATO can act as an enabler and coordinator if
and when member states take action,” Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen offered. But Sarkozy calculated that letting NATO take
charge would put him in the shade.
Instead, this operation is, in his mind, a triumvirate
composed of France, Britain and the U.S. — in that order. As the
Quai d’Orsay put it, for once eschewing diplomatic doubletalk, “We
do not want NATO involved. We do not think it would be the right
signal to send that NATO as such intervenes in an Arab nation.”
Neither the U.S. nor any other Western nation publicly objected.
The Alliance, in search of a new mission ever since the Soviet
Union and its Warsaw Pact disappeared two decades ago, thus became
just that much more irrelevant.
As for Nicolas Sarkozy, he is playing a high-stakes game
in the hope of restoring some luster to his fading presidency and
getting his sputtering election campaign off the ground. “If it
works out well, it will be a triumph for him,” says a hopeful aide.
“He was on the ropes, and suddenly he has the whole world following
his lead.”
