Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: France Toughens Stance on Iran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/30/AR2009093004757.html
France Toughens Stance on Iran
Sarkozy's Sharp Tone Hints at Impatience Over Nuclear Standoff
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 1, 2009
PARIS, Sept. 30 -- Under President Nicolas Sarkozy, France has adopted
an increasingly hard-edged approach to Iran, often out ahead of the
Obama administration with uncompromising language criticizing Iranian
leaders and warning that their nuclear program threatens world peace.
The French attitude reflects Sarkozy's assessment that acquiescing to
unsupervised nuclear development by Tehran would be perilous, risking
an Israeli attack on Iranian installations and increasing instability
in the Middle East. In addition, French analysts said, Sarkozy feels
that Europe got nowhere with Iran in several years of what was called
"constructive dialogue" and that it is time to move on to stronger
measures in tandem with Washington.
As a result, French diplomats at a crucial meeting Thursday in Geneva
are likely to push for swift, punitive sanctions unless Iran pledges
unequivocally to open its entire nuclear program to international
inspection to ensure Tehran is not developing atomic weapons. Jean-
Pierre Maulny, a specialist in European defense at the Paris-based
Institute for International and Strategic Relations, said Germany and
Britain are likely to agree because they also feel the constructive
dialogue bore no fruit and, to some extent, have been aligned with
Paris.
The tough new French approach marks a clear change from the days of
Presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush, when France was often a
reluctant U.S. ally compared with Britain and Germany. In contrast,
Sarkozy in recent weeks has used a sharper tone than have British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- and
President Obama -- in denouncing Iran's nuclear program and advocating
sanctions to force Tehran to allow inspectors in.
Part of the shift comes from Sarkozy's general tendency to use strong,
combative language, in domestic political battles as well as in
international conflicts. "I think it's in his nature to talk like
that," said Fran?ois Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Foundation
for Strategic Research in Paris.
Sarkozy's fundamental position -- seek dialogue but impose stronger
sanctions unless Iran opens its nuclear program to international
inspection -- dovetails neatly with the stances of Obama and other
major U.S. allies, Heisbourg and French officials said. But his recent
public comments have suggested impatience with Obama's extended-hand
policy and a conviction that the time has come to deal firmly with
Tehran's nuclear program.
"We supported President Obama's extended hand to Iran's leaders, but
this hand cannot remain extended indefinitely with leaders who do not
respond," Sarkozy said last month at a meeting with Merkel in Berlin.
At last week's U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, he ratcheted
up his language, saying the extended hand had been ignored and, in
what seemed to be a challenge to Obama, questioning whether it was
worthwhile to keep waiting for a return gesture.
"Meanwhile, the centrifuges keep on turning," he added.
In the same vein, when Obama, Brown and Sarkozy announced at the Group
of 20 gathering in Pittsburgh that Iran was building a second uranium-
enrichment facility in secret, only Sarkozy declared that sanctions
must be imposed by the end of the year if the issue is not resolved.
The timetable coincided with what U.S. and other European officials
were discussing, but Obama had been careful to round off the edges in
public in an apparent effort to avoid closing off options for
diplomacy later on.
Similarly, Sarkozy said after Iran's June 12 presidential election
that he suspected substantial fraud had occurred, adding that the
fraud was "proportional to the violence of the reaction." In contrast,
Obama avoided the word "fraud" and was careful to say he was not sure
of exactly what had happened but was troubled by the repression of
demonstrations.
Sarkozy's aides emphasized that the difference in tone does not mean a
difference in policy. On the contrary, a French official said, the
Pittsburgh announcements were the fruit of unusually close cooperation
between European and U.S. intelligence agencies and extensive last-
minute negotiations among U.S., French and other European officials.
Going by that perspective, any question marks about how to handle
Thursday's Geneva meeting and its aftermath would probably come not
from Western Europe but from Russia and China, who with the United
States, Britain, France and Germany make up the group of six major
powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program.
Michael Williams, a lecturer in international relations at Royal
Holloway, University of London, noted that the difference in tone
between Europe and the United States can be attributed in part to the
wearing down of Europeans' patience during the constructive dialogue
conducted before Obama took office. Although there is no substantial
difference, he said, European leaders seem to be playing bad cop to
Obama's good cop in this stage of the nuclear standoff.
This is specially true of Sarkozy, he noted, who has "a lot of bravado
and can be quite brash," while Brown is "not as charismatic on the
world stage."
Moreover, Britain and France had embassy employees in Tehran who were
blamed for the anti-government demonstrations after the Iranian
election and were arrested, while the United States, with no embassy,
did not have to face such irritations.
In addition, French academic Clotilde Reiss has been confined to her
country's embassy in Tehran for six weeks pending a judge's ruling on
charges that she was spying for French intelligence. Sarkozy told
television interviewers last week that Reiss would not come out of the
embassy except to return to France, no matter what the Iranian courts
might say.
Germany, Iran's largest European trading partner, has been more
cautious. When Sarkozy, Brown and Obama made their joint statement in
Pittsburgh, Merkel declined to participate, breakfasting instead with
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
In general, however, Merkel has hardened her tone since the Iranian
election dispute, calling on Tehran in June to allow the Iranian
people "to exercise their right of free expression." She said in
August that Germany might go along with stricter sanctions if Iran did
not stop its uranium enrichment but has since been silent on the
issue.
Correspondent Anthony Faiola and special correspondent Karla Adam in
London and correspondent Craig Whitlock in Berlin contributed to this
report.

 leaders and warning that their nuclear program threatens world peace.
e per di pi� si incazzano per la storia di Polanski.
Oh, i francesi stan facendo rosicare mica poca gente, in questi giorni....