President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that France next year will become the only Western country other than the U.S. to have a permanent defense facility in the Gulf.
The deal comes at a time when Gulf countries want to protect themselves against a resurgent Iran. At the same time, they don't want to rely just on the U.S., with American prestige in the Middle East running low and the fear that U.S.-Iranian rivalry could drag the region into war.
That's all fine. Until the British withdrew from the Gulf, we didn't really operate there much. Our objective was (and is) stability and if others provided it, we were fine. We operate in the Gulf because the British couldn't afford it anymore and Iran--our chosen ally to fill the vacuum left by Britain's withdrawal--turned from a bulwark of stability to the primary source of instability when the mullahs overthrew the Shah of Iran.
Our presence has increased from a token 5-ship presence in the Gulf prior to our expansion in the late 1980s and air power only in distant Diego Garcia to the Fifth Fleet, hundreds of aircraft in land bases in the Gulf, and half of our Army plus a sizable chunk of our Marine Corps there as well. Once the Iraq fight is won, our forces will decline again but still remain sizable as long as Iran is a threat.
But the rest of the analysis is silly. The Arabs in the Gulf fear Iran yet prefer France to America? Our prestige is running low? Well explain this from the same article:
France's new base will house up to 500 soldiers, sailors and airmen. By comparison, the United States maintains about 40,000 U.S. troops on bases across the Gulf — including Kuwait, the key staging ground for Iraq, and Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters.
The United States has been the dominant outside power in the Gulf since Britain closed its permanent bases in 1971. The Arabs are keenly aware that no European country can supplant the Americans as the primary protector of the oil-rich Gulf states.
If the Gulf states prefer help other than American help, why is the ratio of US to (proposed) French forces 40,000 to 500?
Why portray the new French base as a response to mistrust when the article reports that the Gulf states "are keenly aware" that there is no alternative to American protection? Sure, the Western and Arab-language press has portrayed our fight in Iraq as anything other than the defense of freedom and democracy for Arabs (and Kurds) under attack from Persians and Sunni jihadis that it is. But shouldn't our steadfast fight convince Gulf nations of our reliability? I mean, when France under Chirac was called to fight Saddam, what did France do? I mean other than burning their records about Oil for Food bribery deals with Saddam.
I'm perfectly happy to have a French base in the Gulf. French forces are good. France is our ally. And Sarkozy acts like an ally.
