The French Betrayal of America (Hardcover)

by Kenneth R. Timmerman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 as a realist who would eschew nation building overseas, and warned that if the United States was an arrogant nation, others would not respect us. Sept. 11 changed everything. It not only shifted the focus of his foreign policy to a war on terrorism, but also provided an opportunity for some in his administration to advance their longstanding plan to use force to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

President Bush correctly refocused his foreign policy on what Lee Harris calls in Civilization and Its Enemies "the greatest threat facing us . . . the collision of this collective fantasy world of Islam with the horrendous reality of weapons of mass destruction." But the means he chose to implement that strategy have been more controversial. Harris writes that "we are now living in a world where decent and sincere men and women attack the United States for removing Saddam Hussein, the archetype of the ruthless gang leader . . . . They condemn the United States president for declaring a war on terrorism." But Harris glides over the very serious question of whether Saddam had anything to do with Sept. 11, and what connection there is between the war on international terrorism and war in Iraq. Instead, he says, the way to know whether you are standing on the right side of history is to ask, "Do you want to see the rule by gang go the way of slavery and be driven from the face of the earth, or do you believe that rule by gang is a natural right?" This is a highly oversimplified choice.

Harris argues that it is "in the interest of civilization" to keep the legitimacy of Pax Americana intact. This, he says, requires avoiding three perils: The United States cannot become an arrogant empire, but must rather be a first among equals. Intellectuals must abandon the pursuit of abstract utopias and fantasy ideologies. And we must all overcome a collective tendency toward forgetfulness. It's easy to agree with that level of generality. But Harris fails to be convincing in his defense of President Bush against charges of arrogance. "Contrary to [Fareed] Zakaria's analysis, what we are seeing is not the result of the incompetence of the Bush administration but the absolutely inevitable unfolding of an entirely new epoch in human history," Harris writes; only the United States can ultimately decide what is to be done, and "the United States represents the ultimate source of legitimacy in the world."

Harris understands the importance of America's soft power -- our ability to attract others. "America's enormous strength in the world" arises not from military hardware or technology, "but rather from the miraculous civil ecology that has no example to rival it, with the sole exception of Rome." But what Harris does not adequately examine is that our attractiveness as a shining city on the hill can be undercut by policies that others see as illegitimate. Polls show that the recent decline in America's attraction to much of the world is the result of our foreign policy rather than our culture. The way we pursue our policies has affected others' perceptions of our legitimacy. Since legitimacy rests in the eyes of the beholders, it is not sufficient to simply assert the superiority of our civic culture.

Harris believes that war is the wrong metaphor for the current struggle against terrorism. The perpetrators of Sept. 11 were not rational warriors in the tradition of Clausewitz, but fantasists in a symbolic drama in which the United States was a prop. The action was valuable to them in itself, not as a means to a political bargain. Such useful insights, as well as interesting detours into Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and other philosophers make the book valuable, if not always convincing.

The Iraq war is also a major factor in Kenneth Timmerman's view that France "in many ways has declared itself an enemy" and is "growing away from America." While "France has always loved to play the spoiler's role," he writes in The French Betrayal of America, in this case it went too far. "The enormous difference between those two positions -- legitimate dissent and active subversion of America's right of self-defense -- was not lost on George W. Bush and his top advisers, who renamed the French toast served on Air Force One 'Freedom toast.' " Timmerman does not dwell on the question of the extent to which the Iraq war was self-defense, but he points out that French claims of logic and consistency in their objections "were based on the role of France -- not the United Nations -- in determining world affairs."

Why did President Chirac part ways with President Bush over Iraq? Why, in Timmerman's analysis, did he "cast aside the 225-year-old alliance with America in favor of a tinpot dictator from a mud-and-wattle village on the outskirts of Tikrit whose ability to survive was cast in doubt"? One reason was popular politics: Eighty percent of the French public supported the decision to keep France out of the war. In addition, he was concerned not to anger the more than five million Muslim residents of France. A third reason was oil, not only because of the potential lucrative contracts, but also because of the need to assure an adequate supply. Above all, in Timmerman's view, "opposing America and saving Saddam was going to be Chirac's ticket to history's hall of fame."

Whatever the merits of these arguments, there are also credible alternative hypotheses. Writing in the Nation on Feb. 16, Harvard professor Stanley Hoffmann argued that France had informed the United States that it would contribute forces if there was evidence of Saddam's terminal unwillingness to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. In addition, according to Hoffmann, France did not regard Iraq as a clear and present danger to the United States, and feared the war in Iraq would divert resources from the war on terrorism and attract terrorists to Iraq. As Hoffmann put it, "sometimes it is the sharpest critics who have the most foresight."

Timmerman is particularly strong on the history of French relations with Iraq and the massive corruption involved in arms and oil deals between the two countries over three decades. As a reporter in France for 18 years, he was a well-placed observer. While he footnotes many of his accusations, he also protects his sources in some of the most interesting cases (as any good reporter must), and we are left to judge their veracity on our own.

These books are interesting in opposite ways: Timmerman is strong in detailed reportage, Harris in high-altitude political philosophy. But both authors are supporters of the Iraq war -- and both their arguments fail to convince. As the current cliché goes, what they conclude depends on how they have chosen to connect some widely separated dots.

Reviewed by Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Review
“Timmerman is particularly strong on the history of French relations with Iraq and the massive corruption involved in arms and oil deals between the two countries over three decades. As a reporter in France for eighteen years, he was a well-placed observer.” —Washington Post


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Crown Forum; 1 edition (March 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400053668
• ISBN-13: 978-1400053667
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #750,959 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The title makes it look more radical than it is, July 4, 2004

By A Customer

Regarding the book, it is actually far more critical of Chirac, in particular, than of France. The author has a strong opinion regarding the issues he discusses (not that you couldn't guess by the title), but the stories inside are reasonably well documented, and dovetail with accounts published in newspapers at the time (the 80's and 90's, for those of us old and interested enough to remember them). The author writes well, and the book is an easy read.

However, I keep wondering how many of the 1-star critics have actually *read* the book. Their reviews - almost hysterical in nature, with the odd exception - are the kind you would expect from someone who reads the book description, and, believing it opposite to their preconceived US/World view, decides to deflate it by writing a (pseudo) review and rating it 1-star. Instead of ranting against a perceived neocon cabal against France, it would be far better to point - and document - examples of the book's alleged factual errors; it would make the reviews much more useful to future potential buyers - if that is what the reviewers really want, of course...

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Someone who Has Been There, June 7, 2004

By	Joseph J. Slevin (Carlsbad, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Timmerman talks about his experience in France from a perspective one who as a journalist who lived and worked there among the great and near great for over 18 years.

This is not a book about France bashing to say the least. He reviews throughout the book not only recent history, he links it to the over 200 year relationship the French and the USA have had together since the American Revolution.

He likens our relationship to a marriage of sorts that is now on the rocks as Collin Powell put it, "in marriage counselling", with a change in the overall environment since the French decided not to assist us in Iraq.

This is a side of the story that only an insider can tell us about. Yes we did help Iraq against Iran in the '80s. Yet the French have assisted Iraq since then in building armaments and the French have resisted helping us in the war on terror in tracking and capturing known active terrorists.

Anyone who thinks that we are in the war for the oil may be enlightened by this book because oil and the rights to it is one of the reasons the French did not decide to back our decision to go in. In fact they undermined us to a large extent along with Germany. This new perspective, one which has grown through the years is possibly a result of the power that France shares in the new European Union. However, most of the EU states sided with us, along with Spain, Italy, Poland, because we share a common history with democracy.

One of my favorite quotes in the book is from Collin Powell, however it is truncated to; "We've asked for nothing but enough land to bury them (our soldiers) in." What Timmerman left out in this quote was that Powell was responding to accusations at a meeting in Europe where America was accused of attempting to take over the land of Iraq. The implication of Powell's response was that we did take land in France, when we liberated it in WWII and helped defend it in WWI. That land was the massive graveyards that are at places like Omaha Beach and Meuse-Argonne.

Timmerman discusses the WMD issue, although none have been found, he felt at the writing of the book, that Saddam had the time to hide or destroy WMDs while the UN inspection carried on for months at a time. He mentions just as with an audit turning up fraud, the onus is on the one caught to come up with the goods.

It seems that the WMD issue is mute at this point, however, there is still the issue of the support of global terror and Iraq's involvement therewith. Timmerman chronicles some of that from a perspective that includes an allusion to Ahmad Chalabi.

I would be interested in Timmerman's take on Chalabi since the firestorm surrounded him a few weeks ago.

This issue of the book however, is not WMDs. It is the selling out of the USA by France and how that relates to the overall war on terror.

Timmerman is a very interesting writer. He holds your attention throughout this book as he does in his other successful books. This book is well written and well documented. Time will tell if this book is just His-story or a view of things that have really happened behind the scenes in the war on terror.

63 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as incendiary as it's title, March 26, 2004

By	Sean D. Gerstenlauer (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

The reviewer below didn't read the book. Timmerman presents a fairly balanced account. The crux of his argument is that the "French" betrayal is in many ways more of a "Chirac" betrayal, and Chirac really does seem like a cad. I found the narrative about the U.S./Mitterand (a Socialist) relationship to be saddening; how even when our two countries were deeply at odds the bond created by our shared values held fast. The "balance" in this book comes out during these parts. Germany, France, and to a much lesser degree, the US, were guilty of hardcore realpolitik in their support of Iraq over Iran. The French were frustrated by our lack of "sophistication" in our approach to the Arab world, but at the end of the day France, especially Mitterand would come out on the side of "freedom"(their words). Chirac's personal corruption and disturbingly close, personal relationship with Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz, the French Arm's industry's utter dependence on Iraqi purchases (which amounted to more than Frances own military), and abundant "oil" bribery left France under Chirac no choice but to betray its old friend in the US. It was pleasing to read that though many of the French have been completely steeped in anti-Americanism to justify this betrayal, ther are still many Frenchmen who find this knife in the back to be appalling. This book could have used a bit more in the way of personal interviews and quotes (this is when it is best) and a little less in the way of historic footnotes, but in the end its an important read.