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Leaders of the Group-of-Eight member nations have ended their
second day of meetings amid fresh disputes over Iraq.
US president George Bush sought support from allies for Iraq
in the form of debt reduction and possible use of NATO forces.
But Mr Bush and French president, Jacques Chirac clashed
over the issue of NATO's role in Iraq
Mr Chirac, a fierce critic of the war, said it wasn't NATO's
place to intervene in Iraq.
For more on this, Bharati Jagdish (BJ) spoke to Dr Joseph
Siracusa (JS) from the Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
JS: "The Germans and the French don't want to lose the
leverage that they have. They do not want to forgive the Iraqi
loans or debts whereas the United States does. It wants to
start on a clean slate, but Iraq owes both Germany and France
billions of dollars. They want that money back, but if they
commit troops now, they will lose any leverage over the United
States and the Iraqis. They don't want to give all their cards
away right now. Also, there is still a very deep resentment
within the French and German body politic right now about
assisting the United States on the ground in Iraq. Anybody
who watches the evening news knows that Iraq is very unstable.
You have to remember that both the French and the German leaderships
were very popular for a while in their own countries because
of their refusal to cooperate with the United States in the
run-up to the Iraq war. Can you imagine how popular they would
be now if they didn't get involved in sending the ground troops
right now? I think the reason they are holding back is for
leverage about the Iraqi debts and for leverage within their
own constituencies."
BJ: Mr Bush's security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has said
that Mr Bush had not really requested additional troops from
NATO. What then does the Bush administration really want from
NATO?
JS: "What it wants NATO to do is that it wants nations
that belong to NATO to offer troops to the United Nations
when it enters Iraq. These troops will be there to protect
UN staff. The UN will use them as peacekeepers. Mr Bush wants
very little from NATO as an alliance. He just wants lots of
NATO countries to contribute to the United Nations after the
handover so that pressure on the United States will be relieved."
BJ: The French have said that they would only consider Nato
involvement in Iraq if the Iraqi government requests it. Is
the Iraqi government likely to ask for this?
JS: "I think the Iraqi government might ask for NATO
help, but I don't think the United States would want to give
up its upper-hand in Iraq. If Iraqis themselves asked for
NATO troops, the US would have to cut a deal with Baghdad
and NATO. It would become a situation that would call for
tripartite diplomacy. I don't think the United States or Britain
would be too interested in allowing any Baghdad government
to cut a separate deal with NATO."
BJ: On a related note, the G-8 meeting also launched an initiative
for political and economic reform in the Middle East and North
Africa - the Greater Middle East Initiative - which also alludes
to the settlement of the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. This
initiative has been criticized by many in the Arab world where
people see it as a Western-imposed concept that may not go
down very well in the region. What's your assessment of its
potential success?
JS: "The potential of success is very little. It's just
one of these motherhood statements that comes out of these
meetings. People in the Middle East who have these difficult
problems are looking for very practical solutions and neither
the US not anyone else has been able to effect any positive
change. People at these large meetings are not really interested
in getting down to practical matters. Actually the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict can be solved if the United States and its allies
want to support an Israel that keeps its hands off Palestine
and a Palestine that keeps its hands off Israel. This is the
problem and until you solve this problem between the Israelis
and the Palestinians, there's very, very little anybody can
do. But ultimately, the solution lies with the Israelis and
the Palestinians. If they don't work it out, there's very
little anybody else can do. Nothing can be imposed on them
without committing a half a million troops and of course,
that would inflame the Islamic and the Arab world."
BJ: The US has been talking about installing democracy in
the region for a long time, saying that Iraq would be catalyst
for bringing democracy and human rights to the Middle East
region. But have they ever talked about how exactly they plan
to do this?
JS: "No, not really. This is a bit of a pipe-dream.
In many ways, the genius of American politics is that it doesn't
travel very well. You can just impose American political institutions
and practices on the Middle East. Iraq and Afghanistan, while
they will make progress towards some form of democracy, they
still have to deal with clansmen and tribes and hundreds of
years, if not thousands of years of tradition. It'll be a
different kind of democracy. I think when we talk about democracy
it will have to come from the people of that region and adapted
to their needs. You can't impose this on them. It has to be
an organic process and that will take many, many years."
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