Chirac’s France, Russia and South Africa: criticizing excessive securitisation

Russia and Chirac’s France openly criticised the kind of securitising discourse discussed in the previous section. Altough Chirac’s France agreed shared the view that the possibility of

proliferation in Iran posed a serious threat, its concerns were strictly limited to this issue, and Chirac openly objected the Anglo-american tendency of mixing it with other grievances. Russia was even more openly critical of the US presentation of the Iranian threat, thinking that it was only an excuse to justify the American missile defence project, which Russia believed was in reality targeted against itself. South Africa is also included in the discussion due to a brief but sharp remark criticising the Western P5’s preoccupation with the nature of the Iranian regime.

6.3.2.1 Chirac’s France

In line with the US rhetoric, Chirac argued that “Iran will not achieve security by developing secret programmemes, but rather by fully becoming part of the international community”⁹⁹⁶. He also agreed that there were ‘considerable risks’ involved in the Iranian nuclear issue, but explained them

991 Sarkozy, 23 September 2007a.

992 Sarkozy, 26 August 2009.

993 Araud, 10 December 10, 2009 .

994 Sarkozy, 23 September 2007b.

995 Livre Blanc, June 2008.

996 Chirac, 28 August 2006.

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in rather vague terms as having to do with “the use of a nuclear weapon with the consequences that may entail, and the very serious risk of proliferation this involves”⁹⁹⁷, as well as in terms of

“endangering the continuing existence of the multilateral collective security system and stability within the region”⁹⁹⁸. In a similar manner, the French UN ambassadors (also during the Sarkozy administration) expressed general concern about “the dangers that would arise with respect to Iran’s implementation of a policy of fait accompli”, noting that, “[i]n that volatile region, it would raise the risk of confrontation”⁹⁹⁹. Thus the French president and ambassadors thought that the Iran’s pursuit of its nuclear programme might lead to potentially dangerous consequences but—in distinction from the Anglo-American rhetoric where all the risks were connected with Iranian intentions— did not specify who they thought might initiate confrontation.

At the same time, Chirac avoided mixing the nuclear issue with other grievances, and was openly critical of the Ango-American threat scenarios and the related conceptualisation of Iran in terms of the rogue state imagery. In July 2007 Chirac specifically emphasized that “[t]here is the nuclear issue, and then there is Iran in that region, and I do not believe we should mix up these two issues”¹⁰⁰⁰. Although Chirac did recognise that Iran had “its share of responsibility in the current conflict” in Lebanon, he nevertheless believed that “we can discuss it with Iran” and added that,

“when the elections took place in Lebanon [...] we had contacts with Iran” and that “Iran was quite co-operative”¹⁰⁰¹. Underlying Chirac’s objection towards mixing issues there was a more

fundamental difference with other Western P5 members, for the French president did not share the view that Iran's role in the region was exclusively negative. On the contrary, he believed that Iran was in a position to exert positive and stabilising influence on the region. As Chirac argued in February 2007, “[a]t the regional level, France considers that Iran is destined to play a role in the region where she must contribute to stability and peace”¹⁰⁰². He also said that Iran had its “rightful place and its rightful role to play in the stability of the region”; called it a “a major country”¹⁰⁰³ with a regional “role commensurate with its millennia-old civilisation”¹⁰⁰⁴, and affirmed that it also possessed a “legitimate right to defend its position” and to “have weight in the region”¹⁰⁰⁵. Moreover, Chirac was sensitive about the rogue state discourse in connection with Iran. For

example, in summer 2006 when the president was asked about “the intransigence […] displayed by the Iranians”, he responded to the questioner’s choice of words by saying “let's not use extreme language here”, and then emphasised that “[p]roliferation must be stopped, but Iran isn't being particularly targeted”¹⁰⁰⁶. Similar attitude was evident in September 2006, as Chirac argued in connection with Iran that “[w]e do not aim to call regimes into question” but “to ensure security in accordance with international law and with due regard for the sovereignty of all countries”¹⁰⁰⁷. The French president had reportedly also urged the UK government in Spring 2006 “to press the Bush administration to soften its approach so it no longer treats Iran as a ‘rogue state’ but engages in

997 Chirac, 25 May 2006.

998 Chirac, 9 June 2006a.

999 Lacroix, 3 March 2008.

1000 Chirac, 26 July 2006.

1001 Chirac, 26 July 2006.

1002 Chirac, 1 February 2007.

1003 Chirac, 26 July 2006.

1004 Chirac, 5 January 2007.

1005 Chirac, 18 September 2006b.

1006 Chirac, 9 June 2006a.

1007 Chirac, 19 September 2006.

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wider dialogue with Tehran on terrorism, the Middle East peace process and oil”¹⁰⁰⁸. This kind of criticism was particularly striking as it occurred together with simultaneous political bashing of Syria, which the president described as “a country with which one does not wish to associate”¹⁰⁰⁹ which he urged to “break with its self-imposed isolation”, and “resume its place among nations, while respecting international legality and the sovereignty of its neighbours”¹⁰¹⁰. In contrast to the UK which often presented Iran and Syria as equal in terms of their problematic nature, Chirac also made it clear that the Iranian case was “completely different” from the Syrian one, suggesting that while “the main problem with Iran is [...] the problem of uranium enrichment, the nuclear

question”¹⁰¹¹, the latter involved a variety of problems, most notably due to its “strongly minoritarian and very particular regime, which is both judge and judged”¹⁰¹²,

The most fundamental difference with the prevailing Anglo-American security perceptions, however, became apparent in Chirac’s February 2007 New York Times interview. There the

president denied that Iranian nuclear weapons would in themselves pose a serious threat to anyone, least of all to Israel. As Chirac argued at the time,

…what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb — having one, maybe a second one a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. […] if Iran continues in the direction it has taken and totally masters nuclear generated electricity, the danger does not lie in the bomb it will have, and which will be of no use to it. Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground.¹⁰¹³

The French president was thus saying the US and UK allegations about the Iranian threat to Israel were absurd, given the fact that the latter already had an effective deterrent in the form of hundreds of nuclear warheads. Related to this point, Chirac also called for a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East, thus indirectly calling for Israeli disarmament¹⁰¹⁴. Moreover, Chirac not only focused on Iran when highlighting the danger of a arms race in the region, but instead mentioned US allies Saudi-Arabia and Egypt as potential proliferators:

It is really very tempting for other countries in the region that have large financial resources, to say:

“Well, we too, we're going to do it. We’re going to help out others to do it.” Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it? Why wouldn't it help Egypt to do so as well? That is the danger. So one has to find a way to settle this problem. That, then, is the military nuclear issue.¹⁰¹⁵

Third, and arguably representing the sharpest kind of criticism towards the US, Chirac suggested that Iran’s potential nuclear ambitions were motivated by regime insecurity and lack of international recognition. As he argued,

One has to know what Iran can withstand or not. […]. This somewhat fragile regime is afraid […] of being contested. […] To maintain the regime of the mullahs, it needs to not be contested or threatened by the international community. And the international community, who is it? It's the United States. So how

1008 See Brown & McSmith 2006.

1009 Chirac, 23 January 2007.

1010 Chirac, 28 August 2006.

1011 Chirac, 26 July 2006.

1012 Chirac, 26 July 2006.

1013 Chirac, 29 January 2007.

1014 Chirac, 29 January 2007.

1015 Chirac, 29 January 2007.

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much of Iran's reaction is about wanting to control military nuclear technology, and how much is a desire to be recognized and respected by the international community and in particular the United States so as to avoid bad surprises that could at one moment or another destabilize the regime of the mullahs? ¹⁰¹⁶

Chirac was thus calling for security dilemma sensibility towards Iran, arguing that a less threatening US position would be key to solving the nuclear issue. Not surprisingly, the above comments created a furore, and as a result Chirac quickly gave a second interview in which he omitted any references to Israel in connection with the argument that Iran would be deterred. Instead, he talked in general terms about the technical ability of countries to destroy bombs before they hit their targets¹⁰¹⁷. Significantly, however, Chirac did not take back the argument about the US as adding to Iran’s insecurity and thus motivating its nuclear policy¹⁰¹⁸.

6.3.2.2 Russia

Like Chirac’s France, Russia viewed Iran’s regional role in positive terms, and it did not link the nuclear issue with other problems, demonise the Iranian regime, nor accuse Iran of terrorism support. In a much more direct and consistent way than Chirac, the Russians also criticised the Anglo-American securitising rhetoric on Iran.

To begin from Iran’s regional role, Russia praised it particularly for its positive influence in Afghanistan. While in 2006 Putin spoke about Iran’s “very constructive role in resolving all the problems concerning Afghanistan”, and added that “Iran is really doing a great deal to normalize the situation in the country”¹⁰¹⁹, in 2007 he explained that “Iran and Russia both pay great attention to normalising the situation in Afghanistan”, and that both “have already carried out much work in this direction earlier, and […] continue to cooperate today, and to cooperate well”¹⁰²⁰. Putin also expressed his wish to see Iran included in a big conference dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue¹⁰²¹.

Although Putin’s Russia did not regard Iran as a regional threat, it nevertheless recognized the Israeli concerns about Iran¹⁰²². In this connection Putin showed that he, too, believed that Iran had actually stated its goal to destroy Israel, acknowledging that this was one reason for why the latter’s nuclear programme seemed so threatening. As the Russian president explained in September 2006,

Iran also has the right to develop advanced technology, and in this sense it is no different to Brazil or South Africa. But we also have to keep in mind that neither Brazil nor South Africa proclaim the goal of another state’s destruction and write it into their constitutions, while Iran’s leaders, unfortunately, declare it publicly, which is not in the interests of world security nor of Iran’s own foreign policy.¹⁰²³

1016 Chirac, 29 January 2007.

1017 Chirac, 30 January 2007.

1018 Chirac, 30 January 2007.

1019 Putin, 15 June 2006.

1020 Putin, 16 October 2007b.

1021 Putin, 13 February 2007.

1022 See Putin, 18 October 2007.

1023 Putin, 9 September 2006.

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Medvedev, in turn, openly criticized Iran’s anti-Israeli rhetoric, even though he—like Obama around the same time—had dropped his predecessor’s argument about Iran’s stated intention to destroy Israel. As Medvedev explained in 2009, “Iran should not pronounce such things that it has stated, for example in relation to Israel, when it said that it did not recognize the existence of this state”, adding that this was “unacceptable in the modern world, in the modern system of

international relations”¹⁰²⁴. Medvedev also seemed to agree that the Iranian nuclear programme constituted at least a potential regional threat: in July 2009, he said—after explaining that the Russian position towards Iran's nuclear programmeme is the same as that of “the other participants in the nuclear club” and that the programme cannot yet be described as peaceful—that nuclear weapons “pose a threat to all neighbouring countries so of course we need to keep track of this process extremely closely”¹⁰²⁵.

At the same time, however, the Russian officials suggested that Iran itself felt under threat, and this topic clearly overshadowed concerns about the Iranian threat to Israel. This view was highlighted particularly in connection with Russia’s justifications of its arms sales to the country. For example, when asked about the Russian-Iranian military cooperation in 2007, Putin explained that Russia had just delivered an anti-aircraft weapon system to Iran so that the country would “not feel it had been driven into a corner” or that “it was in some kind of hostile environment”, and that it could instead

“understand that it had channels of communication and friends that it could trust”¹⁰²⁶. In another occasion, Putin again stressed “that Iran should not be made to feel that it is surrounded by hostile forces”; that it should not be pushed “into a dead end, into some kind of trap”, and that “[t]he Iranian people and leadership must realise that they do have friends in this world, that there are people ready to talk to them, and that there are people they can trust”¹⁰²⁷. A similar idea was expressed by Medvedev in September 2009, as he was asked to comment on rumours that Israel would attack Iran if Russia continued to contribute to the latter’s antiaircraft and antimissile system.

The president replied by saying that the Israeli president had recently assured him that Israel would do no such thing, and arguing that “any supplies of any weapons, all the more defensive weapons, cannot increase tension”, and that “on the contrary they should ease it”. Medvedev then stressed that “our task is not to strengthen Iran and weaken Israel or vice versa but […] to ensure a normal, calm situation in the Middle East”.¹⁰²⁸ As will be shown in chapter 8, however, elsewhere the Russian officials expressed concern about Israeli and US plans to attack Iran militarily and highlighted the dangers involved in recourse to force. Also in this connection, they showed sensitivity to Iran’s security perceptions. For example in February 2007 when Putin expressed concern about what seemed like American preparations for a war against Iran¹⁰²⁹, he mentioned the issue of security guarantees, and posed the question as to whether the members of the international community can “feel that international law really does provide them with solid and reliable

1024 Medvedev, 15 September 2009.

1025 Medvedev, 5 July 2009.

1026 Putin, 10 February 2007a.

1027 Putin, 10 February 2007a.

1028 Medvedev, 15 September 2009,.

1029 As Putin (10 February 2007a) noted, there was “a fairly large naval presence armed with missile technology […]

already deployed in the Persian Gulf” which was “not being used for operations in Iraq”, as well as a new initiative which “provides for […] deploying aircraft carrying units in the region”, and which likewise did not seem to be

“necessary for resolving the problem in Iraq”.

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protection today”, or whether “we […] make unilateral decisions not based on international law part of the practice of international relations?”¹⁰³⁰.

As for the Western P5’s claims that Iran constituted a direct military threat to themselves or Europe, Putin and Medvedev both rejected such a view. The differing threat perceptions here were directly related to the US-Russian missile defense dispute that had begun to unfold already before the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002. The old dispute culminated again in 2007 with the US plans to extend components of this controversial system to Europe.¹⁰³¹ From the Russian point of view, the US claims about the Iranian threat as the reason for this project were ridiculous. For example, Putin argued in 2007 that “[m]issile weapons with a range of about five to eight thousand kilometres that really pose a threat to Europe do not exist in any of the so-called problem

countries”¹⁰³²; that “Iran does not have such a missile system”¹⁰³³, and that “we are being told that this missile defence system is there to defend against something that doesn’t exist”, after which he asked his audience whether they did not think that such claims were “even a little bit funny?”¹⁰³⁴. Vitaly Churkin also stressed that one first has to understand where the “real threats”, as opposed to

“fantasy threats” are, and argued that an Iranian missile threat did not exist, for Iran was years away from being able to develop the kind of missiles to which the US was referring¹⁰³⁵. In addition to the lack of technical ability, the Russians argued that Iran had not even plans to develop such a

capability¹⁰³⁶, nor the intention to attack Europe. For example, Putin explained that he “would not be so quick to suspect the intentions of our neighbours, and Iran is one of Russia’s neighbours”, and that “Iran has no plans to attack Europe”¹⁰³⁷. Countering US claims about the Iranian threat to itself in this context, Putin also argued that “[n]o one can seriously imagine that Iran would be so bold as to attack the United States”¹⁰³⁸.

The Russians were of the opinion that the US used the Iranian threat as a pretext for larger-scale power-political games that it was playing behind the scenes: as Putin argued, it was “perfectly obvious” that the kind of missile system that the US was after was “not needed to defend against Iranian or—even more obvious—North Korean missiles”¹⁰³⁹ but instead it was “clearly aimed at Russia and its vast nuclear arsenal”¹⁰⁴⁰. Or—according to Vitaly Churkin—it was based on the Cold

1030 Putin, 10 February 2007a.

1031 The first phase of the dispute centered on the US justifications to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, based on the general threat that it claimed was coming from outlaw states. At the time, Russia refuted the US claims by, first, questioning the accuracy of the threat assessment and, second, by warning that missile defence actually increased global insecurity. For example, Putin (11 June 2000) said that “contrary to what the US claims, no missile threat emanates from the so-called “rogue states” in the Middle East or in Asia”, and that “there is no threat today or in the foreseeable future”. After the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty, the Russian government did not for a long time raise the question of missile defence. However, this did not mean it had accepted the project, which became clear in 2007 as the US began negotiations with Poland and the Check Republic about the deployment of components of the system on their soil. According to the Guardian (23 April 2007), the US-Russian relations were “at their lowest since the end of Cold War” due to the missile defence dispute.

1032 Putin, 10 February 2007b.

1033 Putin, 28 April 2007.

1034 Putin, 4 June 2007.

1035 Churkin, 27 March. 2008.

1036 Putin, 28 April 2007.

1037 Putin, 8 June 2007.

1038 Putin, 4 April 2008b.

1039 Putin, 4 June 2007.

1040 Guardian, 2 March 2007.

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War mentality of preparing for Russian, and perhaps also to Chinese threats¹⁰⁴¹. Medvedev, too, was of the opinion that cold war mentality still seemed to guide Western security perceptions¹⁰⁴². He also thought that an excessively ideological foreign policy explained the failure of US policies in the Middle East, including in Iran. As he said,

Let us ask ourselves frankly: because the United States is active in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and looking at Iran, is it that the life of the people of the United States of America has become better or more secure?

Let us ask ourselves frankly: because the United States is active in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and looking at Iran, is it that the life of the people of the United States of America has become better or more secure?

In document Enforcing the laws of anarchical society: the case of Iran in the United Nations Security Council (sivua 158-166)