I agree with Jim Nolan that the Kouchner appointment is very interesting and important but I don't read it politically as Jim Nolan does. To me. the most interesting thing is that a person of prominent international NGO background moves sideways across to intergovernmental diplomacy at the highest level. That dramatic appointment corroborates my view that the most interesting and creative part of international diplomacy these days involves the NGO world. The excellent Angelina Jolie film "Beyond Borders" well illustrated the growing international importance of NGOs. The present meeting on whales in Anchorage is also a fascinating case study of how these days, it is international NGO scrutiny that prods the sluggish world of sovereign-state diplomacy into some action.
But Nolan hints that Kouchner in some way represents pro-occupation views on Iraq. I am not sure he will fit into that frame. A different style from Chirac days, certainly. But I doubt Sarkozy will be volunteering French troops any time soon to join US-led forces in Iraq. France will go on playing its own international hand according to its own vision of its national interest in the world. Any increase in cooperation with Washington will flow from that perspective only.

French foreign policy has been roundly critcised in American, British and Australian political circles because it has been at odds with US foreign policy. But don't French politicians have a duty to formulate a foreign policy which they regard as in France's national interest rather than the interests of a foreign power? The French Government under Chirac has been criticised as being soft on Saddam Hussein. And yet the Reagan Administration sent warships in the Persian Gulf in the 1980s when the Iraqi regime looked like it was going to be defeated by Iran.

If Mugabe at the Elysee Palace is a disturbing image how about Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein when the Reagan Administration was re-establishing diplomatic ties with Iraq?

As for hawkishness, this is what has got the Americans in trouble in Iraq in the first place. French hawkishness has had disasterous consequences in Indochina and Algeria in the 1940s and 50s.

I get very tired of people like Jim Nolan who seem to contrast supposed French duplicity with supposed American idealism. A closer look at the history of US foreign policy should refute such a caricature once and for all.

the french can be stupid on their own behalf, but they won't be putting their toes in the middle east, to be stupid for the yanquis, non, non, non!

algeria cured them of illusions about french empire in moslem lands, and they haven't forgotten. their large north african immigrant population would remind them daily and forcefully that they have problems at home if a single french soldat started towards iraq.

but perhaps the top people will be polite to bush, as to a very sick man, not long for the world. if only one of the dem candidates spoke french well, we could hope for a voice of reality reaching american ears, but as usual, they all think the real world stops at the american border. plus ca change..

Why is Bernard Kouchner seen as 'hawkish'? Yes it is clear he is a long-time supporter of humanitarian intervention, but also a clear believer in the power and the prerogative of the UN to conduct such interventions. This in no way signals his support for an un-mandated invasion and occupation of Iraq. The man seems primarily a humanitarian. It is clear that the situation in Iraq has thus far been a humanitarian disaster.