Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Better be careful what you wish for President Chirac, you just might get it by Fred A. Quintana
30/06/2004
At the NATO summit in Istanbul, French President Jacques Chirac, in response to President Bush’s effort to encourage the acceptance of Turkey into the EU, declared that "It is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico.” further declaring that Bush, and by extension, the United States, “ went into territory that isn't his".
This statement demonstrates that President Chirac, despite his grand eulogies at the D-Day/ Normandy 60th anniversary commemoration, has forgotten or has chose to ignore America’s earned privilege to declare its issues and interests in Europe. Europe’s creation of the two most devastating wars the world has ever witnessed forced the United States out of its isolationism and forced it to become interconnected with Europe, a situation America’s founders had feared and warned against. In doing so, the United States lost almost a million men in restoring sanity to Europe and in its commitment to prevent it from doing so again.
After the insanity of World War II, a reluctant United States invested in the reconstruction and restoration of Western Europe. Afterwards, the US put its cities and its citizens at risk of nuclear annihilation for the defense of Europe. To demonstrate its commitment to the defense of Europe, it based almost half a million men in Europe as part of its commitment to defend the region against a Soviet invasion. The United States has earned the right and the privilege to declare its positions and interests in the European region with its historic sacrifices and commitments to the region. The US was dragged out of its isolationism by Europe on several occasions throughout its history by force. In exchange, it has provided the stability and security that has enabled Europe to return to prosperity and contemplate the idea of a united Europe.
Chirac’s attempt to exclude the United States from the process of the EU has demonstrated that France’s attempt to establish a European identity with its own policies and interests as the foundation of the EU will be based defining it as non-American as possible. It does this knowing that American resentment is the only common aspect can unite disparate European states such as Romania and Belgium with French ambitions to be the major influence within the European Union.
Yet President Chirac and much of Europe fails to recognize that US presence in Europe, whether political, diplomatic or military, ensures stability and actually has fostered the conditions for the creation of the EU. If the US were to delink itself from the Transatlantic framework, Europe, with no dominant state or organization that could impose a structural framework or order, would return an environment similar to the pre 1914 era, where each state within the region would be competing for its own interests and in doing so foment the constantly shifting alliances that laid the foundations of the First World War.
President Chirac must be careful what he asks for, as the old saying goes, he just might get it.
30/06/2004
At the NATO summit in Istanbul, French President Jacques Chirac, in response to President Bush’s effort to encourage the acceptance of Turkey into the EU, declared that "It is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico.” further declaring that Bush, and by extension, the United States, “ went into territory that isn't his".
This statement demonstrates that President Chirac, despite his grand eulogies at the D-Day/ Normandy 60th anniversary commemoration, has forgotten or has chose to ignore America’s earned privilege to declare its issues and interests in Europe. Europe’s creation of the two most devastating wars the world has ever witnessed forced the United States out of its isolationism and forced it to become interconnected with Europe, a situation America’s founders had feared and warned against. In doing so, the United States lost almost a million men in restoring sanity to Europe and in its commitment to prevent it from doing so again.
After the insanity of World War II, a reluctant United States invested in the reconstruction and restoration of Western Europe. Afterwards, the US put its cities and its citizens at risk of nuclear annihilation for the defense of Europe. To demonstrate its commitment to the defense of Europe, it based almost half a million men in Europe as part of its commitment to defend the region against a Soviet invasion. The United States has earned the right and the privilege to declare its positions and interests in the European region with its historic sacrifices and commitments to the region. The US was dragged out of its isolationism by Europe on several occasions throughout its history by force. In exchange, it has provided the stability and security that has enabled Europe to return to prosperity and contemplate the idea of a united Europe.
Chirac’s attempt to exclude the United States from the process of the EU has demonstrated that France’s attempt to establish a European identity with its own policies and interests as the foundation of the EU will be based defining it as non-American as possible. It does this knowing that American resentment is the only common aspect can unite disparate European states such as Romania and Belgium with French ambitions to be the major influence within the European Union.
Yet President Chirac and much of Europe fails to recognize that US presence in Europe, whether political, diplomatic or military, ensures stability and actually has fostered the conditions for the creation of the EU. If the US were to delink itself from the Transatlantic framework, Europe, with no dominant state or organization that could impose a structural framework or order, would return an environment similar to the pre 1914 era, where each state within the region would be competing for its own interests and in doing so foment the constantly shifting alliances that laid the foundations of the First World War.
President Chirac must be careful what he asks for, as the old saying goes, he just might get it.
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