Chirac rejects Bush call for bigger NATO role in Iraq

SAVANNAH, Ga. – French President Jacques Chirac blasted the Bush administration Wednesday, saying President Bush’s drive to spread democracy throughout the Middle East is ill-conceived and rejecting Bush’s call to expand NATO’s role in Iraq.

Chirac’s criticism came at the G-8 summit of leading industrial democracies, which President Bush is hosting in this coastal Georgia resort. The dissent set back White House hopes that the summit would display a new international unity behind Bush’s policies in the Middle East and Iraq.

Chirac said democracy couldn’t be achieved in the Middle East until there was substantial progress toward solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has stressed the same point privately, a senior administration official conceded here, as do U.S. Arab allies throughout the Middle East.

Even once an Israeli-Palestinian peace is reached, Chirac said, outsiders can’t simply implant democracy in the region.

“Democracy is not a method, it’s a culture,” Chirac said, in a statement translated from French. “Reform is not imposed from the outside. It is accomplished (from) the inside.”

He also challenged Bush’s desire to increase NATO’s role in Iraq. Bush said during a photo session that he thought “NATO ought to be involved” in Iraq, adding that “we will work with our NATO friends to at least continue the role that now exists, and hopefully expand it.”

Chirac quickly dismissed the idea.

“I do not believe it is NATO’s purpose to intervene in Iraq,” Chirac said, adding that any NATO role could be justified only “if the sovereign Iraqi government were to ask for it.”

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin also appeared cool to the idea.

“There’s already NATO involvement,” he said. “Fundamentally now, with the new Iraqi government in place . . . it’s up to the government to make that request.”

Despite such disagreements, the leaders from the so-called G-8 nations – the United States, France, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia – endorsed a wide-ranging plan focusing on political and economic reforms in the Middle East and North Africa. The summit statement on the plan reflected Chirac’s concerns, which mirror those of many Arab nations.

“Our support for the reform in the region will go hand-in-hand with our support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict” based on United Nations resolutions, the statement said. In a gesture of support for Bush’s position, it added: “At the same time, regional conflicts must not be an obstacle to reforms. Indeed, reforms may make a significant contribution toward resolving them.”

Administration officials pressed the G-8 leaders to embrace unconditionally Bush’s vision of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East as a way to combat religious extremism and terrorism.

Bush maintains that Iraq’s shift from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship to a government elected in phases can be a showcase of modern democracy that leads to a transformation of the Middle East’s political culture.

Bush and Blair discussed the Israeli-Palestinian situation Wednesday in a private session. One senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity, said the two leaders “were coming at the problem in different ways, and looking at different ways in which to move forward. It’s a tough problem. If it were easy, it would have been done.”

U.S. officials said America wasn’t trying to force change on the region. “The drive for reform is coming from within,” one said. “They’re doing it out of conviction.”

The G-8 leaders also discussed Middle East issues with invited representatives from Jordan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Turkey, Iraq and Algeria. Other invited leaders from key Arab nations including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco declined to attend.