On March 20, 2003, a military coalition led by THE UNITED STATES invaded iraq of dictator Saddam Hussein, without receiving the green light from the UN, triggering the second Gulf War. The stated goal par then US President George W. Bush, is to “disarm Iraq, liberate its people, and defend the world once morest great danger”, reference to weapons of mass destruction which he accuses Saddam Hussein of holding.
Among the States which refuse to accompany Washington and its allies in the Iraqi desert: Russia, China, Germany and… France. The “no” of Paris to the war, formulated by President Jacques Chirac and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin, in a speech to the Security Council of the United Nations, resounds on the surface of the Globe and goes down in History.
His speech is in everyone’s memory. “In this temple of the United Nations, we are guardians of an idealloose Dominique de Villepin, martial and determined. (…) And it is an old country, France, from an old continent like mine, Europe, which is telling you today, which has known wars, occupation, barbarism, a country which does not don’t forget, and who knows all he owes to freedom fighters from America and elsewhere.” Even today, this speech remains one of the strongest of French diplomacy and is worth to his minister to be applauded in the precincts of the Security Council, a rare fact. He is also the cause of complicated relationships that will poison for several years relations with Washington. On the contrary, the gesture of Paris is welcomed by a large majority of the Arab world.
Strategic partnership
Franco-Iraqi relations are now described as “particularly dynamic”, according to the website of the Quai d’Orsay. Numerous “high-level” visits, including from the autonomous region of Kurdistan, have been carried out in recent years by Iraqi officials in France, and French in Iraq.
President Emmanuel Macron went there twice during his first term. : in September 2020, then at the end of August 2021 on the occasion of the Baghdad Conference. As reminds us of the Elysée, it was organized by Iraq, in coordination and cooperation with France, in order to bring together the neighboring countries of the Middle East with a view to working for the security, stability and development of the country. A second part of this conference was held in Jordan in December 2022where the French head of state also visited.
On the Iraqi side, the Prime Minister, Mohammed Chia al-Soudani, – elected at the end of October 2022 – was received in Paris on January 26.Questioned by France 24, the head of the Iraqi government hailed his visit as a “paradigm shift in relations between Iraq and France”, which took a “strategic path thanks to the signing of a strategic partnership agreement”.
This bilateral partnership concerns “the military, economic, health, educational and higher education fields, not to mention global warming (…) It is a global agreement which covers all areas and which highlights the strategic interests of the two countries to become partners at all levels,” said Adel Bakawan, director of the French center for research on Iraq and author of the book “Iraq, a century of bankruptcy. From 1921 to the present day” (ed. Tallandier , 2021). However, he specified that the Iraqi Parliament still had to ratify the Franco-Iraqi agreement.
Iraq, pivot of the Middle East
However, experts differ on the nature of the Franco-Iraqi relationship. According to Adel Bakawan,“Paris thinks that Iraq is the pivot of the Middle East. When the country is secure, stabilized and developed, the whole region is positively affected. On the contrary, it is affected when Iraq lose in stability, security and development”.
France wishes “to establish a partnership, and not a collaboration, in all areas with the Republic of Iraq”, continues the expert, Who specifies that the reciprocal Iraqi is “globally present and observed”. “Only, Iraq is ethnically, denominationally and politically fractured. And within these fractures, we can have nuanced remarks from time to time, but the Iraqis generally want to engage in this long-term partnership with the France.”
If it is a dynamic bilateral relationship, “it is not a relationship through which France projects a significant influence in Iraq, apart from the diplomatic representation which is its own, believes for her part Myriam Benraad , professor of international relations at Schiller International University and author of ‘Iraq beyond all wars’ (ed. Le Chevalier Bleu, 2023) And this is not a relationship that, on the Iraqi, is perceived as providing him with important opportunities”.
She adds that “apart from the military plan and the very limited fight once morest the Islamic State (IS) group, cooperation remains relatively limited. France thus cooperates with Iraq as it cooperates with other States in the Middle East. There is no specific Iraqi priority for the current French diplomacy”.
Concretely, France is Iraq’s second partner in the field of Coalition personnel once morest the IS group, once more according to data from the Quai d’Orsay site. Paris also participates in NATO’s NM-I mission (Atlantic Alliance Mission in Iraq, non-combatant, editor’s note).
Make Sure Iraq Doesn’t Implode
Relations between Paris and Baghdad are, however, far from having regained their former luster.yesteryear, when Jacques Chirac, at the time Prime Minister of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, declared himself the “personal friend” of Saddam Hussein, then number two in the Iraqi regime. In the 70s and 80s – under right-wing and left-wing governments – France had made Iraq its privileged partner in the Middle East. Relations were such that Paris went so far as to supply Baghdad with a nuclear reactor, Osirak, destroyed by the Israeli air force in 1981.
“In the 1970s, we had an Iraq having a key central state in the Middle East and which was growing in power on a Middle Eastern scale in all areas. It was the period of the empowerment of the Iraqi economy. , in particular via the nationalization of oil (in 1972, editor’s note). So, relations between France and Baathist Iraq had another form with another vision of the world”, recalls Adel Bakawan.
Today, “we are in a context of reconstruction of the Iraqi state. (…) In the 1970s, Paris wanted to be a partner of this country which dominated the Middle East”. Now is the time for pragmatism. “France is determined to support Iraq in its reconstruction and is doing everything to ensure that it does not fall into political, economic, social and institutional bankruptcy”, continues the specialist.
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“We are in the context of military cooperation which essentially targets the jihadist threat, the idea is also to ensure that Iraq does not fall back into the throes of jihadist violence”, considers his side Myriam Benraad. “France’s objective is to ensure that Iraq does not implode.”
