Middle East Quarterly has a fascinating analysis of French foreign policy vis-a-vis the Islamist threat. While I don't agree with everything Olivier Guitta says (banning headscarves is hardly reaching out to Islamists), the overall analysis of the Chirac doctrine is thought-provoking. It is a good thing to take France seriously.With just one-fifth the population of the United States, France boasts the world's second largest contingent of diplomats, and its consulates and embassies number just eight fewer than the State Department's 260.[1] The French investment in its foreign ministry is likewise heavy and demonstrates the importance the French government places on French prestige and grandeur. Under President Jacques Chirac, French foreign policy has become increasingly assertive. Francois Heisbourg, director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (Foundation for Strategic Research), summed up French foreign policy as "oppose just to exist."[2] Such descriptions are not entirely fair, though. While Chirac inherited a French foreign policy already tilted toward the Arab world, his pursuit of close personal ties to Arab leaders and his outreach to Islamists, rejectionist Arab states, and groups considered terrorists by the U.S. government is part of a broader strategy
Franco-British rivalry in the Middle East is a major theme of A Peace to End All Peace (scroll down). Of course, Chirac's recent stroke may affect Guitta's theory as much as the death of Syria's Hafez al-Assad.
