MFA THINKING ON IRAN AND IRAQ

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 001716

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/09/2023
TAGS: PREL FR IZ IR
SUBJECT: MFA THINKING ON IRAN AND IRAQ

Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Kathleen

H. Allegrone, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Franck Gellet, MFA DAS-equivalent for Iraq,
Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula, acknowledged progress over
the past year in Iraq and said that as a result, France had
moved away from its previous idea of convening an
international conference to promote Iraqi national
reconciliation. Instead, France will continue to encourage
Iraq's Arab neighbors to engage diplomatically with Baghdad.
Gellet stressed that neither France nor Europe were in a
financial position to undertake new reconstruction projects
in an oil-rich state, but said that the GOF was actively
encouraging French companies to do business in Iraq. Turning
to Iran, Gellet repeated that Paris' relations with Tehran
were "unraveling" due to Iran's unwillingness to make any
effort at restoring confidence. He predicted that the
standoff over Iran's nuclear program would eventually have to
be resolved by force, and said he is freely sharing that
analysis with French companies to encourage those already
doing business in Tehran to exercise prudence and dissuade
newcomers from setting up shop there. Gellet described
himself as an advocate of a categorical ban on Iranian
students pursuing studies in mathematics or the sciences in
France, a view not fully shared within the GOF. End summary.


MFA DAS Acknowledges Progress in Iraq
--------------


2. (C) Poloffs met September 11 with Franck Gellet, MFA
DAS-equivalent for Iraq, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula; Amb.
Xavier Roze, Inter-Ministerial Coordinator for Iraqi
Reconstruction; and Arnaud Pescheux, desk officer for Iraq
and Iran. Gellet, who served for two years as the French DCM
in Baghdad and who believed as recently as a year ago that
the Iraq war was irretrievably "lost," reiterated that the
Quai d'Orsay's analysis of Iraq has changed in response to
positive developments. In particular, he cited the
dramatically improved security situation, the ebbing of the
Sunni insurgency, the emergence of Prime Minister Maliki as a
more confident and capable leader, the slow but discernible
political progress towards national reconciliation, and moves
by Iraq's Arab neighbors to establish embassies in Baghdad.
"Bravo," he offered, tacitly conceding that his earlier
pessimism had been misplaced.


3. (C) As the situation on the ground has changed in Iraq, so
have French concerns. Gellet said he was troubled by reports
that the Kurds are increasingly at odds with Iraq's Sunni and
Shia communities, both of which are increasingly annoyed by
Kurdish positions on issues such as Kirkuk, oil revenues, and
the borders of the Kurdish Region. The French have therefore
been offering their Kurdish interlocutors some candid advice,
reminding them that they must be realistic and should not
expect even a long-term U.S. military presence to shield them
if they antagonize all their Arab neighbors. In addition,
Gellet expressed concern at Iranian efforts to increase
Tehran's influence . . .


4. (C) What this has meant in policy terms, Gellet continued,
is that France has decisively moved away from it's
long-standing idea of an international conference to promote
Iraqi national reconciliation. With Iraq moving towards
something that looks like normalization, the French are now
more interested in helping that process along than in
re-inventing the Iraqi constitutional wheel. In particular,
Gellet said that France would continue to encourage Iraq's
Arab neighbors to engage with the GOI (Gellet pointed to FM
Kouchner's visit to Baghdad as a case of France "leading by
example" in that regard). Recent decisions by some Arab
states to reopen embassies or send high-level visitors to
Baghdad showed that Iraq's majority Sunni neighbors were
adapting to or encouraged by the new reality. He noted,
however, that bringing Saudi King Abdallah around was a
nearly impossible task. "The King will never accept a Shi'a
government in Baghdad . . . it's as if Protestants had taken
over Rome," said Gellet.


5. (C) Poloffs took the opportuity to review with Gellet some
of the Department's proposals on increasing French
involvement in Iraq. Unfortunately, Gellet made clear (with
Amb. Rose nodding in agreement) that France, which finds
itself in a difficult fiscal environment, had no intention of
undertaking reconstruction projects in what Paris sees as a
cash-rich oil-state. Rather, with the exception of on-going
aid projects in the Kurdish zone around Irbil, such as in the
health sector, French support would continue to be primarily
diplomatic (i.e., encouraging Iraq's neighbors to engage with
and aid the Iraqi government) and moral (i.e., encouraging
French companies to do business in Iraq). Asked how France
was using its EU presidency to further EU support for Iraq,
Gellet was somewhat dismissive of the EU as an institution,
saying that non-Europeans often misperceived the EU as a
federation when in fact it was nothing more than a forum for
technical cooperation. Even in that context, Gellet offered
no hope that a Europe that remained divided over how to deal
with Iraq was likely to come up with additional economic or
technical assistance in the foreseeable future. (Comment:
This attitude stands in sharp contrast to French expectations
that upon assuming the EU presidency Paris would be able to
rally stronger EU support for Baghdad. Rather than focusing
on how the EU could complement UN-led reconstruction efforts,
Gellet indicated that France was mostly seeking to get other
EU members to make unilateral political gestures such as
ministerial visits. To date, he acknowledged, this approach
has had limited success: German FM Steinmeier, for example,
had not visited Baghdad as expected. When we asked why
President Sarkozy had not cited Iraq as a French foreign
policy priority in his recent address to French ambassadors,
Gellet sought to minimize the importance of this slight,
claiming initially that Iraq was not as pressing in terms of
current events given the improved security situation, but
later contending that Sarkozy's diplomatic advisor,
Jean-David Levitte, had removed all references to Iraq from
the speech. End comment.)

Iran
--------------


6. (C) Turning to Iran, Gellet repeated his frequent lament
over the past year that France's bilateral relationship with
Tehran continued to "unravel" just as it did for the Germans,
the UK and others (albeit at different speeds). The core
problem remained that the Iranians were doing nothing to
create an atmosphere of trust. In terms of the regime's
internal dynamics, Pescheux said the French MFA had finally
given up trying to make sense of the relationship between
Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad, a
relationship that was opaque even to officials at the French
Embassy in Tehran. When Pescheux suggested that tensions had
led to a diminution in the number of senior Iranian contacts
in Tehran, Gellet hastened to correct him by saying that
France nevertheless retained "quite a few" Iranian
interlocutors. With respect to next summer's presidential
elections, Gellet noted that Tehran Mayor Qaliboff, whom
Gellet described as a "pragmatic conservative," might emerge
as a potential rival to Ahmadinejad. He noted that Qaliboff
has been using the excuse of city-to-city diplomacy to visit
places such as London and thus to raise his international
profile. An anticipated visit to Paris had not yet
materialized. Nonetheless, Gellet suspected that any
differences between Qaliboff and Ahmadinejad on the Iranian
nuclear program were probably tactical rather than strategic.
Gellet worried that Iran's intransigence on the nuclear file
would eventually lead to armed conflict between Iran and the
international community and said he is sharing this analysis
with French business leaders to encourage those already doing
business there to exercise prudence and reconsider their
position and to dissuade newcomers from doing business with
Iran. (Gellet's line is essentially: "Do you really want to
be on the ground in Tehran once the shooting starts and the
Iranians start looking for some easy targets for
retaliation?") Gellet expressed some concern that Israel,
sensing a narrowing window of opportunity after the November
election, might strike pre-emptively but would not be able to
do much more than to scratch the surface of the Iranian
program. Then the Iranians would strike back, inevitably
dragging the U.S. and others into the conflict "before we are
ready." Gellet and his colleagues also asked about USG
intentions vis-a-vis Iran, including the prospect of a
renewed diplomatic presence in Tehran via an expanded U.S.
Interests Section; Poloffs replied that no such expansion had
been announced, although the idea had been briefly discussed
in the context of outreach to the Iranian public.


7. (C) During a brief discussion of tightening sanctions
against Iran, Gellet stated that he was taking a rather
contrary position within the GOF by advocating a total ban on
Iranian students pursuing any course of study in mathematics
or science (with a possible exception for medical students),
as opposed to current French policy, which only bans Iranian
students from courses of study that are seen as having the
potential to directly support Iran's nuclear program. Gellet
saw no reason to risk allowing Iranians to pursue degrees in
advanced mathematics, for example, if they might then apply
that knowledge to the nuclear or other WMD programs. On the
other hand, he posited that France and other European states
should encourage Iranian students to pursue degrees in the
liberal arts that would expose them to Western thought and values.

Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Fran ce

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