Redrawing European Security Borders: The Road to Redrawing the Map of the Middle East
“The politics [foreign policy] of a state are in its geography.”-Napoleon Bonaparte I, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, and Mediator of the Helvetic (Swiss) ConfederationBefore NATO’s Riga Summit it was agreed upon that the western periphery of the “Arc of Instability” would be manned by NATO and fall under Franco-German responsibility. Signs of the consensus reached between the Anglo-American and Franco-German sides had emerged through Franco-German representatives a month prior to NATO’s conference in Riga, Latvia. While lecturing at Princeton University in October 2006, Joschka Fischer the former German Foreign Affairs Minister, a member of the Green Party of Germany, and a representative of the Franco-German entente gave a profound revelation about the direction of the foreign, security, and defence policy that Germany and France were heading towards.The direction according to Joschka Fischer was “eastward,” with both the Middle East and its Eastern Mediterranean waters being named as the new borders of Europe. This region would be part of the new security sphere of the E.U. and Europe. The former German minister stated that the terrorist bombings in London, Britain and Madrid, Spain showed that the Middle East “is truly our [Europe’s] backyard, and we in the E.U. must cease our shortsightedness and recognize that.”Furthermore, Joschka Fischer warned that Europe needed to shift its attention to the Middle East and Turkey — a member of NATO and one of the “gateways” or “entrances” into the Middle East. It is not coincidental that The New York Times also argued for the expansion of NATO into the Middle East just months after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003. By 2004 and through the joint Anglo-American and Franco-German coordination in Lebanon it was clear that France and Germany had agreed to be America’s bridgeheads in Eurasia. This is what brought about the leadership of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin and Paris.The statements of Joschka Fischer reflected a broader attitude within the leading circles of France and Germany. They are not coincidental remarks or innovative in nature or isolated statements. They are part of long-standing objectives and policies that have existed for decades. Fischer’s lecture foreshadowed the drive towards the harmonization of foreign policy in the Middle East between France, Germany, Britain, and the United States. What Joschka Fischer said marked the rapprochement of the Franco-German entente and the Anglo-American alliance and foreshadowed the greater role the E.U. and NATO would play in U.S. foreign policy.The Daily Princetonian, Princeton’s school/university newspaper, quoted the former German official as making the following statements: .1. “Europe’s security is no longer defined on its [Europe’s] eastern borders, but in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.”.2. “Turkey should be a security pillar for the European community, and the efforts to derail that relationship are impossibly shortsighted.”Joschka Fischer’s statements also foreshadow Nicolas Sarkozy’s public campaign in the Mediterranean region. Franco-German policy is also exposed in regards to Turkey; before Nicolas Sarkozy was elected in France, Chancellor Angela Merkel intensified her calls for the inclusion of Turkey within the framework of the E.U. through a “special relationship,” but not as part of the actual European bloc. This also foreshadowed what Nicolas Sarkozy would later propose to the Turks.This could mean one of two things: Franco-German policy is part of a continuum regardless of leadership and party politics or that the outcome of the 2007 French presidential elections were known in Berlin or decided beforehand. Whatever the case, the German statements expose a calculated agenda in Paris, Berlin, and other European circles for expansion linked to the Anglo-American march to war.
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
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