Playing Chicken With the French

PARIS -- For the past several months, France and the United States have been playing what amounts to a game of chicken over Iraq -- with each side stubbornly refusing to change its position and waiting instead for the other to blink.

But with the security situation deteriorating almost daily in Baghdad, both countries are beginning to recognize that the status quo is dangerously unstable, and both seem to be groping toward a formula that would "internationalize" the postwar reconstruction of Iraq under some new United Nations mandate.

The two prickly allies are still far from agreement. As is often the case in French-American relations, their presidents sometimes act as if they would prefer a car wreck to admitting they might have been wrong. And there remain important and perhaps insurmountable differences between France and America about how to stabilize a volatile Iraq.

Still, senior officials on both sides of the Atlantic have been floating trial balloons this week suggesting a willingness to discuss a new Iraq resolution in the Security Council. On Wednesday Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the administration is exploring creation of a multinational force under U.N. leadership. And in a speech here yesterday French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said that France, too, would like a "real international force under the mandate of the United Nations Security Council."

The French foreign minister expanded on his speech in a telephone interview. He sought to dispel the impression, widespread in Washington, that France, which strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, wants to see American policy fail there.

"The French are not here to teach anyone any lessons, but to help find a solution," de Villepin told me. "We know the complexity of the situation. We know it's difficult. There are no easy answers -- certainly not for our American and British friends, when we see the risks to their troops. We are working with all our partners in the international community, including the United States, to try to find a solution to these difficult problems."

De Villepin said he has begun informal contacts with Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about a new U.N. resolution, and that those discussions are likely to continue over the next weeks.

Despite these upbeat comments, there remains a wide gap between the French and U.S. positions. De Villepin told me that stability in Iraq will be impossible until there is a political solution that restores sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Simply adding more troops won't make the decisive difference, regardless of whether they are under U.S. or U.N. control. Washington, by contrast, sees the situation in reverse: The transition to a new, democratic Iraq will be impossible until the country is stable and secure.

De Villepin said France wants a timetable for transferring political control to an Iraqi provisional government by the end of this year, through election of a constitutional assembly. He cited Afghanistan as a good model for the transition. In Afghanistan the United Nations has overall responsibility for postwar reconstruction, but military forces remain under the control of a U.S. commander.

Even the most artful diplomats will have difficulty finessing these differences. For the French, the problem isn't simply sending troops -- many observers suspect the French military would like to be on the ground in Iraq right now with its traditional allies, Britain and America. But French political leaders reject the political premises of U.S. military occupation and the role of U.S. administrator Paul Bremer as Iraq's unelected proconsul.

Because France was the leader in organizing Security Council opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last March, U.S. diplomats say its support would be essential in framing any new U.N. resolution. Other key opponents of the war such as Germany and Russia would probably follow France's lead, these U.S. officials say. But precisely because the French are convinced their line on Iraq was correct, they will insist on changes in U.S. policy as a condition for their support.

"It's implicit brinkmanship," says one State Department official of the French position. "Do they have an interest in the U.S succeeding under its current approach? No. Do they have an interest in Iraq becoming a disaster? No. Somewhere in between those two poles lies their policy."

The question for the Bush administration is simple, albeit painful: Does Washington really want international help in Iraq, and what price it is willing to pay? The French foreign minister concluded his speech yesterday by offering his own response: "It is in the interest of the United States to share the risks with Europe, and the responsibilities." Now Bush must decide whether that kind of partnership in Iraq is worth the trouble, and the loss of face.

davidignatius@washpost.com