Macron Does The Right Thing For Selfish Reasons
By Adam Garrie
French President Emmanuel Macron has offered a strong statement condemning American, Saudi and Zionist meddling in Iran’s internal affairs. In a statement which is surprisingly robust given Macron’s foreign policy record, the French President stated,
“The official line pursued by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are our allies in many ways, is almost one that would lead us to war (with Iran)”.
Macron’s modus operandi is clear enough. French businesses, unlike their American counterparts, have taken advantage of the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal), to conduct incredibly high stakes and potentially, massively profitable deals with Iran.
In July of last year, for example, the French energy corporation Total signed a $4.8 Billion deal with Iran relating to gas exploration and extraction along the vast South Pars gas field.
This is just one of many large deals inked between French companies and Iran. As Macron’s biggest support base remains France’s urbane financial and corporate elite, he is certainly not going to risk incurring their wrath. Because of this, he is standing up to the geo-political adventurism of the regimes in Riyadh, Tel Aviv and even Washington, whose goals of regional domination are not shared by France who in this instance, is collectively happy enough to make money from Iran without ruling Iran.
The scenario is not dissimilar to that which France faced in 2003 when President Jacques Chirac became an unlikely anti-war hero due to his vocal opposition to George W. Bush and Anthony Blair’s illegal war upon Iraq.
Unlike the US and UK who largely turned their back on Iraq beginning in 1990, French businesses continued to conduct high level deals with Saddam Hussein’s country throughout the turbulent 1990s and early 2000s.
It is true that Chirac, like most of the world, realised the madness of a war on Iraq and likewise, he seemed to have a large degree of personal animosity towards Bush and Blair as they embodied the “ugly Anglo-Saxon” mentality that Chirac defined himself as the antithesis of. However, Chirac also knew that French businesses stood to lose billions of Euros from the destruction of Iraq.
Ultimately, he stood up for French business interests, which at that time, coincided with the interests of peace.
Today, Macron is doing largely the same, as the interests of the French corporate class which has ballooned since the more austere Chirac days, are temporarily aligned with the advocacy of peace in Iran. The fact that Washington and Tel Aviv are far more afraid of attacking Iran directly than they were in respect of Iraq in 2003, makes Macron’s intervention all the more important.
Of course there is another factor at play. In trying to diplomatically isolate Iran, Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh are attempting to coerce European parties to the JCPOA, including France, into adopting Washington’s position of opposition to the JCPOA.
Macron’s statement is a clear indication that this strategy has backfired, because for major European powers like France, the JCPOA remains popular.
The other US goal of trying to force Iran to cease its aid to the anti-terrorist struggle of Iraq and Syria also looks like a failure.
Iran’s role in Iraq is now that of a long-term political ally, as Iraq’s war has largely shifted from a military conflict to a security and political rehabilitation programme. In this sense Iran’s role in Iraq is that of a long term partner which is something most Iranians and most Iraqis few favourably. Iranians who grew up hating Saddam’s Iraq, are now, not only at peace with, but are generally supportive of the Shi’a dominated Iraqi government’s pro-Iranian stance. In this sense, Iran’s position vis-à-vis Iraq is not likely to change.
In respect of Syria, Iran’s main role has evolved from a military advisor, to that of being the torch bearer of Syrian interests at the Astana Peace Talks. While Russia’s role is that of a supreme balancer and Turkey’s role is one which seeks to legitimise extremist Sunni factions (however contradictory a task this is) while also restraining the influence of Kurdish extremists in Syria, Iran has aligned itself with the majority of anti-Takfiri Syrians. As a Shi’a power in the region, Iran’s pedigree offers a great deal of reassurance for the Syrians who have been most viciously targeted by Takfiri terrorists.
Fellow Astana members Russia and Turkey have offered robust statements in favour of Iran’s sovereignty with both Moscow and Ankara warning against any illegal foreign meddling in Iran’s internal affairs. Turkey has blamed “Israel” and the US for meddling in Iraq, while Russia has gone on the offensive against American hypocrisy.
In this sense, when a fellow Astana member came under attack from “Israel”, the US and Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey supported their besieged partner and in so doing, will have encouraged Iran’s further participation in Astana and by extrapolation in the Syria crisis.
Unless the US, “Israel” and Saudi Arabia are willing to flood Iran with terrorists and send new loads of arms to existing terrorist groups inside Iran (including Baloch aligned Takfiris, Kurdish terrorists, MEK sleeper cells and Royalist hooligans), their mission will likely fail.
Even if the aforementioned aggressive powers did send arms and/or cash to terrorists, Iran’s security services are very prepared for such an incident.
In this sense, the two immediate goals of the aggressive powers have failed—Europe has not rejected the JCPOA and Iran is not decreasing its legal influence in Syria and Iraq (nor Lebanon).
Because the aggressors will likely not give up this easily, Iran must remain on guard and ready to crush any hint of western/Zionist/Wahhabi backed sedition at any time.
Liberteon