jacques chirac has been painted in a host of strange ways by the american press since 2003: many of these ways of distorting his image curiously function to make him in general more pallatable than he actually is. but this short article, summarizing a speech from today (i think) outlines what looks like the first suggestion for a coherent way out of iraq: an international conference, a kind of multinational forum, that would be convened and that would try to work out a coherent way out of the present debacle. even without having any information about who would be included and how it would proceed, this sort of action seems to me about the only one that presents in principle any way out of this mess:
it would remove the u.s. from the center of things, which is at this point i think absolutely necessary. the americans are boxed in by their own choices: they cannot act as mediators because they are parties within a civil war; they have no credibility in terms of disinterestedness and even more in terms of actual actions; the situation on the ground appears to be spinning well beyond any hope of control. attempts that the american make to assert some primary control seem to me to be doomed from the outset simply because they will tend to exacerbate existing dynamics rather than break them.
here's the synopsis of chirac's speech (i could get the text of it later, if there is a call for it)
Quote:
Chirac Blasts U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq
Friday January 5, 2007 4:31 PM
PARIS (AP) - President Jacques Chirac gave a tough critique Friday of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its fallout, saying the war destabilized the entire Middle East and allowed terrorism to spread.
In a speech to ambassadors, Chirac also renewed his call for an international conference on the Middle East, saying he was deeply concerned by the growing number of crises there.
``At Europe's gate, the Middle East has become an epicenter of international tensions,'' Chirac said. ``Crises are building up and spreading.''
On Iraq, Chirac suggested the problems there today justified France's strong opposition to the invasion in 2003.
``As France foresaw and feared, the war in Iraq caused upheavals whose effects have not yet finished unraveling,'' he said.
``The venture exacerbated the divisions between (Iraqi) communities and undermined the very integrity of Iraq,'' he said. ``It weakened the stability of the region, where every country is now worried about its security and independence. It gave terrorism new terrain for expansion.''
Now, ``more than ever, the priority is to return sovereignty to the Iraqis,'' Chirac said.
Chirac had rallied together voices against the Iraq war, the main foreign policy legacy of his 12 years in office. He is not expected to stand in elections this year, though he has not yet declared his intentions.
For months, Chirac has called for an international conference on the Middle East. The European Union should relaunch the work of the so-called Quartet peacemakers - the United States, the EU, Russia and the United Nations - with a proposal for a conference, he said.
Chirac said it should be ``a new form of conference that, without claiming to dictate the terms of the settlement to the parties involved, would bring the new guarantees that they aspire to,'' he said. ``Then, I am persuaded, a true dynamic of negotiation could be launched.''
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source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...325213,00.html
what do you think of this idea?
would it work?
what should such a conference look like? who should be included and who not included?
what do you think the prospects are for this?
do you think the bush administration capable to acceding to it? why or why not?
do you see in this anything like a path that might lead out of the current debacle?