Going Nuclear in the Middle East - In search of an European Middle East Policy
Gérard LARCHER, President of the French Senate -Mr Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence and Armed Forces Committee, dear Josselin de Rohan, Mr President of the Robert Schuman Foundation, dear Jean-Dominique Giuliani, ladies and gentlemen Ministers, ladies and gentlemen Ambassadors, dear colleagues Senators, Ladies and Gentleman,
I am delighted to be here this afternoon to open these two days of discussion where we will be looking at the Middle East here in the French Senate.
The Middle East today is quite clearly one of the global hotspots of the world. It is also a big challenge for the international community. I am delighted that the Senate has led a major initiative in this sense over the last few months, initiated by Mr de Rohan.
I would also like to congratulate those who are behind this seminar: our Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee and the Robert Schuman Foundation.
I would also like to express my undivided admiration for our two colleagues who have produced the Committee's report that is the origin of this meeting: Mr Jean François-Poncet and Mrs Monique Cerisier-ben Guiga. They spent a year working on this, which involved visiting 17 countries. Often very tiring and difficult trips were made. They went to Gaza in January 2009, 10 days after the end of Israel's Operation «Cast Lead». They also went to Baghdad.
The result of those visits and studies produced an outstanding report last September. I would like to pay a special tribute to the authors because they reflect the quality of the Senate reports and the work done by your Committee, Mr Chairman. Just like the parable of the talents, I am sure we will be able to multiply that input during these two days.
I would also like to congratulate a Senate professional staffer who assisted the two Senators along their mission : Mr Frederic Mauro.
I smiled when I read the first sentence of your report, which was « If you have understood something about the Middle East, it is probably because you have had the wrong explanations. »
You refuse the excuse of the complexity of the Middle East situation - on which there is no doubt - which leads some people to stage unnecessarily complex explanations, due to nuances and false subtleties. Yours is not such a case. Your report is clear and precise about many aspects of the political situation. It puts everything in perspective, explains the links and connections, and explains, in simple terms, things that are fundamentally complex.
Complexity does not hide the major issues, though.
Finally, you have looked at the links between this region and the Western world - Europe and France, in particular. This is a very sensitive issue of vital importance for us.
The two authors of the report had intimate knowledge of the region, where they knew many political actors. They looked in-depth at the underlying facts and did not hesitate to challenge some accepted beliefs. Their assignment was carried out with full intellectual freedom and vision. I am sure that you will listen to their conclusions with great interest and attention.
The round tables today and tomorrow will give us input from a wide range of different specialists. They are dedicated experts on these sensitive subjects that are of vital importance to our common future; I am not thinking only of the terrorist threat but also of the necessary balance between different parts of the world.
I am not going to anticipate the subject of those debates because you are all specialists in that area, but I just want to share the reason why I pay so much attention to this topic and why I think it is very much at the heart of the Senate's role to organise this kind of conference.
What is a Parliamentary Committee report? It is a decision-making tool, not a substitute to it. In our country, it is the role of the Executive, under the authority of the President, to shape and conduct the foreign policy. As a long-standing Gaullist, I am very much attached to the role of the State and I respect the balance of powers between the Executive and the Legislative.
As President of the Senate, I pay attention to the fact that the three missions of our Assembly are thoroughly fulfilled: legislation, control and prospective. This report is at the core of two of them: law enacting and control of the government.
The Senate is there to lay down the path of the future, whether it be in domestic or international affairs.
Mr Chairman, your Committee has spent a lot of time and work on the Middle East. The Senate is a major contributor to the definition of our foreign policy and provides a useful parliamentary viewpoint. The public debates organised by the Senate two weeks ago showed this quite clearly. So does today's meeting.
The Senate is open to partners' points of view. We will pursue this dialogue next month with the Ambassadors from the member states of the Arab League, whom we will host at the Senate's Presidency with my fellow Senators, as well as Chairmen of parliamentary groups of friendship.
It is due to René Monory, former President of the Senate, that we have this Senate's open-mindedness on the world, on international affairs. The Senate listens to the world and contributes to looking for solutions. Therefore, I believe that our assembly fulfils its institutional mission.
I must tell you that I have not just an interest in this region, but almost a passion. This part of the world has been the cradle of so many great civilisations and religions. We are all aware of the political challenges embedded in the Middle East, which to a certain extent determines the stability of the world.
The challenges are great and the stakes are high for all of us.
I decided to focus a substantial part of my international work in this area, and to concentrate there our cooperation, in addition to the strong, decentralized cooperation of many other institutional bodies. My first official trip, last January, during the Gaza crisis, was to Egypt. Two weeks from now, I will undertake an official visit to Lebanon.
Over the past 12 months, I have met a number of politicians from the region: the President of the Knesset, the Vice-Prime Minister of Israel, the President and the Prime Minister of Lebanon last week, and the Iraqi President, the President of the Iraqi Parliament, the Emir of Qatar and the Syrian President a few weeks ago. I also had the pleasure of meeting President Gül of Turkey, whose country is diplomatically active in the Middle East. In fact, I have also visited Ankara and Istanbul because it seemed important to me, following the work of Josselin de Rohan, that we establish with this country an open and dignified dialogue.
With all these different interlocutors, I covered the ground that you will be talking about - the situation in Iran and the Iranian nuclear programme, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is such a long, slow process. There is also the situation in Iraq and its renaissance after a nightmarish decade. Then we went to Afghanistan. I met the President of the Pakistani Parliament less than a month ago because I think that international stability is very much at stake in this country. We talked about the social evolution; the large youth in these countries, and their problems and frustrations. We also talked about the dialogue between civilisations and about cohabitation between different religions. We talked also about a secular society. I remember two meetings with people who were not politicians: Mr Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, and Sheikh Tantawy, of Al-Azhar University, whom I met in Istanbul and Cairo, respectively, and I remember their calls for understanding and tolerance. I have a specific recollection of each one of those meetings. I saw that there was a desire for dialogue. Our involvement is well known and expected. Parliamentary actions are not a carbon copy of Presidential diplomacy. They are something different.
There are a large number of universal questions raised in the Middle East. These issues can also be raised on our own domestic scenes. I think our own social cohesion depends on them being resolved. We have seen that some of these problems, due to tensions in the Middle East, have spilled over into our own societies. I must say that we cannot speak of social cohesion if we do not take a look at this open and global world. In this global world, the worst temptation would be to draw back within ourselves and within our certainties, whereas we should be talking about universal values.
Therefore, I hope, Chairmen, that after you have heard from Mr François-Poncet and Mrs Cerisier-ben Guiga, you will be able to contribute to the progress of these important ideas so that this brazier in the Middle East can transform into flames that carry warmth up to our hearts and let us hope.
Josselin de ROHAN, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces Committee of the French Senate - Mr President of the Senate, ladies and gentlemen Ambassadors, dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is my honour to chair the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces Committee of the French Senate. In September 2008, two of its members, Jean François-Poncet and Monique Cerisier-ben Guiga, were asked to report on the situation in the Middle East. The two rapporteurs went to all Middle Eastern countries except for Iran, as the authorities did not give them entry visas before the elections of June 2009. Neither were they received by the leaders of Israel because they had met with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus. Nevertheless, they were able to enter Israel and go to Gaza 10 days after the end of Operation Cast Lead. They also spent four days in Iraq and met with high-ranking officials there. The two rapporteurs had over 250 meetings and hearings abroad. They also consulted with most of the Middle East experts in France. They undertook all of the necessary visits in order to fully understand the stages involved in making nuclear weapons. The two rapporteurs also went to Washington and New York, where they met with the main institutional players in the United States. They also met with the so-called «Pro-Israel Lobby.» Finally, they went to Brussels where they met with Mr Javier Solana, the Representative of the EU for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, who will be meeting with us tomorrow.
The rapporteurs submitted their report to the Committee last September. I am pleased to have heard the words of praise voiced by the President of the Senate regarding this report. Of course, the report was adopted by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces Committee of the Senate.
Its analysis is very topical, and was widely disseminated in both the French and English language versions. It was the basis of public debate held here in the Senate on January 12, 2010.
Today's and tomorrow's discussions are an extension of this overall reflection which will be given an international dimension as we bring in foreign speakers. I thank them for coming, in many cases from very far away - Dubai, Palestine, Washington, Berlin and London - to speak to us here. They are some of the top specialists on matters of this region.
I would like to thank Mr Gérard Larcher, President of the French Senate, for making this event possible, and thank the President of the Robert Schuman Foundation, Mr Giuliani, for his very important contribution.
Before giving the floor to my colleague and friend Jean François-Poncet, who will be giving the thrust of the conclusions, I would quickly like to make three points of personal thought on the subject of a European policy for the Middle East.
Rather, I will make two observations and ask one question.
The first observation is fairly straightforward. The Middle East is very important for Europe. The interests are due to geography, history, economics and also to the fact that the Middle East is important for the security of all Europe. The best way to counter what we often vaguely call «Islamic terrorism» is lasting and fair peace in the Middle East. We must also recognize the presence of large Middle-Eastern communities in our countries. There are between 15 and 20 million Muslims living in Europe. In France, the Muslim community numbers over five million people, the largest such community in Europe. It is also the case with the Jewish community, which is estimated at 500,000 people.
Next, to invert my previous observation, Europe is not that important to the Middle East. When we travel there, we see that they have expectations for Europe, where «soft power,» as opposed to the «hard power» of the United States, is prized. We are reminded of our historical relationship. The people say that they are interested in our businesses, our products and our culture, but we have to realise that as soon as things get complicated, they turn to the United States. It has never been truer than since President Obama's election. He held out his hand to the Muslim world through his Cairo speech. Yet, Europe was the first to recognize the two-state solution with the Venice Declaration of June 1980. It also played an important role in the Madrid Conference and the Oslo agreements of 1991. However, since then, Europe had stepped back. It did not bring its weight to bear during the Bush years. The Quartet was established, whereby the US coordinates diplomatic efforts and acts as a guarantor of security, while Europe pays the bill. The contribution of European states to compensate for the consequences of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank totalled more than 1 billion euros in 2009. The financial commitment is large in spite of the fact that the EU's political commitment is marginal.
After these two observations, my question is simple: why ? If Europe is powerless, it is because it is divided. It is unable to speak with one voice on the central issue in the Middle East: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To define a policy is not an easy thing to do, but it is possible. It is up to you to say this. The subtitle of this symposium specifically alludes to this by asking, «What European policy for the Middle East?»
I hope you have an interesting debate and thank you for your attention.
Jean FRANÇOIS-PONCET, French Senator, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Co-author of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces Committee's report on the situation in the Middle East - Mr President of the Senate, Mr Chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces Committee of the Senate, Mr President of the Robert Schuman Foundation,
I would like to start by expressing thanks quite obviously to the President of the Senate for the exaggeratedly flattering nature of his statement. He should know that Ms Cerisier-ben Guiga and I are highly appreciative of it.
I would like to remind you that this symposium is organised by the Senate with, of course, the close cooperation of the Robert Schuman Foundation. We will hear about European policy from the Foundation's President a little later on. I would like to thank him and the Robert Schuman Foundation for participating in and co-organising this symposium.
As the Chairman from the Foreign Affairs Committee said, this symposium is, to a certain extent, the culmination of the mission entrusted to us by the Committee. That is to say entrusted to Ms Cerisier-ben Guiga, who knows the subject very well, and myself. We were actually asked to produce a synthesis at the end of the mission. As has been said, this meant that we made half a dozen trips to the Middle East and talked not only to authorities in the different countries, but also to independent interlocutors and to journalists, to the extent that you can find them there - with a bit of effort you can. The result is that the report that we have drafted draws on a number of different sources. It is a report that has tried to be as objective as possible.
Now, as we embark upon this symposium, you have to remember that the Middle East is probably the part of the world to which Europe is closest. It imports a substantial chunk of its energy from there. It also imports terrorists. Obviously, this is not its preferred form of imports. In addition, Europe has with the Middle East a fairly close human link because of the significant Muslim minorities in Europe, especially in France.
That is why events in this region are of enormous interest to us. It is true that what is happening is often more on the negative side but we should not forget about the positive side that does exist and is often underestimated.
Two issues create serious concerns in both Europe and the United States: the Iranian nuclear programme and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We will have one roundtable on each of these two subjects.
Let me briefly say something about each. The uranium nuclear programme, if we have understood correctly through our dialogue with experts capable of assessing it - the French Atomic Energy Commission, for example - should make it possible for Tehran to have a low-level, modest, but operational nuclear weapon around 2015. The fact that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon is not necessarily a threat to Europe in and of itself, but it will have a ripple effect. Saudi Arabia and Egypt will be tempted to follow the Iranian example, either under their own steam or together with the Pakistanis. It is hard to imagine that Pakistan would be able to resist for long the attraction of the financial incentives that the Saudi regime is able to offer. There are three dangers involved: firstly, the fact that such an unstable region as the Middle East would become nuclear. Secondly, a nuclear Iran - and the accompanying technological expertise - would undoubtedly bolster its influence in the Middle East, thereby increasing the instability of that region. Thirdly, Israel has made it clear that should Iran -whose President seems to be calling for the end of Israel every three months - acquire such an arsenal, it would obviously constitute an existential threat for Israel. At the moment it does not appear that Tel Aviv is thinking of undertaking airborne action against Iranian nuclear plants, but one cannot rule out such an eventuality in the future.
The second problem that has worried us for such a long time is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What one can say in a nutshell is that this is a conflict whose resolution has never seemed more remote than today for two reasons. Firstly, despite US pressure, Israel has not agreed to put an end to its settlement programme. All you need to do is take a map and see that their expansion means that the creation of a territorially coherent future Palestinian state becomes extremely difficult. Also, divisions within the Palestinian movement between Hamas, controlling the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority, controlling the West Bank, mean that to date - and for the moment one cannot see much likely change - it is not possible to appoint a sole negotiator for the whole of the Palestinian people. The future of the Palestinian people is a concern shared by all Arab countries, and for these countries a solution to this problem is the litmus test for Western governments. I can tell you that as I travelled around with Ms Cerisier-ben Guiga, every single country raised this particular issue.
The third country that we will have a roundtable on is Iraq. Iran's nuclear programme and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are fortunately not the only issues existing in the Middle East. They are not the only developments one can see in a general survey of that region. Others are more positive. Iraq is a country with as much oil as Iran and only slightly less than Saudi Arabia, and certainly has the potential of being a huge oil-producing country. Unfortunately, because of certain decisions taken by President Bush, it seemed doomed to permanent and bloody insecurity - until 2007. The United States, who are often unfairly criticised, have 150,000 men on the ground and have achieved considerable successes that enable us to believe in Iraq's future. They have managed to convince many of the Sunni tribes who were behind the insurgency to join with them in exchange for funding and to turn against al-Qaeda, for whom Iraq was becoming a major base of activity, but whose blind attacks on the civilian population had led to their growing unpopularity. Now I think it is fair to say that al-Qaeda for the most part has been thrown-out of Iraq. Unfortunately, they seem to have landed in Yemen. Yemen has never been a very stable state and the result is that it is now facing growing problems. Iraq is, of course, a fundamentally divided country, divided along religious lines with the Shiites in a large majority and the Sunnis in the minority. There are also the Kurds who account for 20 % of the population and who in the north of the country have created an autonomous region with its own independent armed force, the Peshmerga, who I can assure you are very worthy and well-disciplined fighters. The future of Iraq remains unsure. There are regular series of murderous attacks in Baghdad. There are problems that are difficult to resolve, like the future of Kirkuk, which is a large city in the north of the country. It is problematic but the Iraqi Prime Minister Mr Al-Maliki is a strong man who has appealed to the patriotism of all Iraqis and who could well have a positive influence on the future of the country as long as the parliamentary elections scheduled for February or March enable him to maintain or reinforce his position.
Perhaps lastly I will give a couple of words on other countries - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - that have not been given specific roundtables in this symposium.
At the moment, the Saudi monarchy seems fairly well established. A law concerning succession within this enormous family seems, at least for the moment, to have settled the problem of the succession and transition from generation to generation. The 82 year-old King Abdullah prudently but firmly is pushing through reforms that are gradually modernizing the country and transforming a society that has remained very conservative.
As for Egypt, its future really depends on what happens after Mr Mubarak, who is now in his eighties. It is said that he will stay on until the bitter end. The question of his succession is still open. What one can legitimately assume is that the security apparatus, which is very extensive throughout the country, and the army, which is the dominant force there, will organize some kind of ordered transition.
Now I will stop this brief overview there. All I wanted to do was paint the general picture and it is now up to the roundtables to go into the greater details. Thank you for your attention and I will now give the floor to Mr Robert Malley who is the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program of the International Crisis Group that maintains a presence in all of these countries. One of your delegates in Damascus, Syria, enabled us to meet Mr Khaled Mashal, who is the political leader of Hamas. The result of which was our blacklisting by the Israeli authorities. That is not very important because there are independent think tanks and independent journalists in Israel. There is no problem finding information without having to speak to officials, who in any case can only tell you what they are allowed to tell you.
Mr Robert Malley will now give us a general rundown on the situation in the Middle East, and then we will move into the first roundtable on the Iranian nuclear programme.