Architects of Delusion: Europe, America, and the Iraq War

Serfaty's knowledge of politics and personalities in the four capitals he considers is extensive. The interpretations of interactions among them are subtle.

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And there is a fine sense of historical background as well as today's global context. In Architects of Delusion , Simon Serfaty presents a historical analysis of how and why the decision to wage war was endorsed by some of America's main European allies, especially Britain, and opposed by others, especially France and Germany.

Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, and Gerhard Schroeder were, Serfaty argues, the architects of one of the most serious crises in postwar transatlantic relations. These four heads of state were the victims not only of their personal delusions but also of those of the nations they led.

They all played the hand that their countries had dealt them--the forceful hand of a righteous America, the principled acquiescence of a faithful Britain, the determined intransigence of a quarrelsome France, and the ambiguous "new way" of a recast Germany. Serfaty's deft interweaving of the political histories and cultures of the four countries and the personalities of their leaders transcends the Europe-bashing debate sparked by the Iraq invasion.

He contends that not one of these four leaders was entirely right or entirely wrong in his approach to the others or to the issues, before and during the war. For the resulting wounds to heal, though, and for the continuity of transatlantic relations, he reminds us that the United States and France must end their estrangement, France and Britain must resolve their differences, Germany must carry its weight relative to both France and Britain, and the United States must exert the same visionary leadership for the twenty-first century that it showed during its rise to preeminence in the twentieth century.

Simon Serfaty is Senior Professor of U. Hardcover , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

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To ask other readers questions about Architects of Delusion , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about Architects of Delusion. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Lauren rated it liked it Sep 17, The revolutionary ideas that emerged in France in during the French Revolution and subsequent years were not well received by monarchists and aristocrats on the rest of the continent and in Britain. France, the leading European power for two centuries, had suddenly and violently overthrown the feudal foundations of continental order and, it was feared, the revolution might spread.

The concerns were not unique to Europe. Despite the positive view in some of the United States , the revolution awakened or created anti-French feelings among some members of the Federalist Party. Goya painted several famous pictures depicting the violence of the Peninsula wars during the Napoleonic Era. In particular, the French actions against Spanish civilians during the Peninsular War drew a large amount of criticism, as illustrated by The Third of May painting. Beginning with the French invasions of Germany in the late 18th century, France became the century-long rival of Germany.

The rising German nationalist movement also considered France their greatest enemy because France not only had temporarily conquered much of Western Germany during the Napoleonic Wars but also was the country most strongly opposed to the idea of a unified German empire and wanted Germany to remain divided into many individual states. In this time, the myth of the so-called hereditary enmity German: Erbfeindschaft came into being, according to which the Romanic French and the Germanic Germans had been antithetic enemies ever since the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest , a notion that was inherently unhistorical.

In the 19th century, anti-French sentiment became commonplace in German political discourse even if the deep cultural interrelation between the two could never be blanked out completely.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poked fun at this in his epic Faust I with the verse: Ein echter deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzen leiden, doch ihre Weine trinkt er gern. Several German nationalist anthems were written against the French, most prominently Die Wacht am Rhein. After the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War in , the anniversary of the decisive Battle of Sedan was made a semiofficial national holiday in the German Empire.

After the culminations of Franco-German enmity in both world wars, the two actively gave up their mutual animosities in the second half of the twentieth century. Today, Germany and France are close political partners and two closely connected nations.

The Delusions of Iraq War Hawks

A joint Franco-German television network, Arte , was founded in The French colonial empires earned many enemies, among rival colonial countries, especially the British empire , especially by colonised peoples. The Second World War had an effect on the modern French image abroad. Before the war's outbreak, the French government had reluctantly acquiesced to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain 's policy of appeasement and acceptance of Adolf Hitler 's various violations of the Versailles Treaty and his demands at Munich in Today it is the turn of Czechoslovakia.

Tomorrow it will be the turn of Poland and Romania". The prime ministers of France between the World Wars were generally frightened about German intentions, as France sustained more casualties in the First World War than any other Western country, approximately 1.

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Relations were very poor at the time, and French leaders were also acutely aware that the population of Germany 64 million exceeded that of France by a considerable margin 40 million , a major strategic vulnerability. The vulnerability and France's proximity to Germany caused French leaders to take a harder stance on Germany than the British, for example. The French occupation of the Rhineland and France's desire to collect reparations, owed by Germany under the Versailles to France, caused British leaders to see French leaders as pushing for war with Germany. He even considered military assistance to the Spanish government during the Spanish Civil War the Germans were supporting the Nationalists [7] [8] but reluctantly decided otherwise, as some Nationalist sympathizers in France openly threatened civil war, just like in Spain.

Also, the predecessor of Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin , and his staff, including Anthony Eden , strongly opposed any aid for fear both of communism the Soviet Union was supporting the Republicans and of the war spreading into another world war. In , the military defeat of the French Army, after only a month, caused much disillusion across Europe. As a consequence, the image and the reputation of France as Europe's military superpower were seriously compromised until after the war ended. Vichy France collaborated with Germany, which included anti-Jewish legislation and other actions, which had a negative effect on the French image abroad.

Post-World War II France is a major world power with nuclear armed forces retaining a weapons stockpile of around operational nuclear warheads , making it the third-largest in the world, [12] greater than those of United Kingdom, modern Germany or postwar Japan — all nations which have rarely been claimed to be merely "middle powers". France also has a permanent seat on the United Nations, and one of the largest economies in the World.

However, France's very status and active foreign policy have caused it the attract some negative attention. Some view [ citation needed ] some of postwar France's leaders to be vocal and independent-minded in their dealings with other major nations. The two French presidents most often perceived to be vocal and independent are Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac. The policies of Charles de Gaulle during his second presidency — included several actions that some critics have held against him.

In total, De Gaulle advocated a strong presence among the great nations and independence towards the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the situation is by no means unique to France, as the other overseas European Great Power, the United Kingdom, also owns many British overseas territories and the controversies they generate.

Architects of Delusion

There is also the issue of nuclear testing in the Pacific. Since , around nuclear tests have occurred around the Pacific, to the opprobrium of other Pacific states, Australia and New Zealand.

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In , New Zealand reggae band Herbs released their breakthrough single, "French Letter", which strongly criticised French nuclear testing. French security forces have sought to interfere with the activity of nuclear testing protesters. The following year Greenpeace protesters were detained by the French, and the skipper claimed he was beaten. Greenpeace had been a very vocal opponent of French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Australia ceased military cooperation with France and embargoed the export of uranium to France. Chirac's decision to run a nuclear test series at Mururoa on 5 September and 2 October , just one year before the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was to be signed, caused worldwide protest, including an embargo of French wine. Protesters demonstrated at the French embassy in Canberra , and the French honorary consulate in Perth was fire-bombed. The company Delifrance was forced to downplay its entry into the Australian market even if it was not a French company.

Some authors in the French press replied by discussing Australia's own human rights record and its supposed ambitions to dominate the Pacific one cartoon by Plantu portrayed an Australian wearing a very British bowler hat. Despite a large French contribution to the Iraq Gulf War called Operation Daguet and the French presence in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom , the opposition of French President Jacques Chirac to the Iraq War led to a significant rise in anti-French sentiment in the United States, [18] epitomized by a movement to rename french fries to freedom fries.

Representative Ney chaired the Committee on House Administration and had authority over the menu in the House cafeteria. The freedom fries renaming was not without controversy or opposition. Timothy Noah of Slate noted that the move was "meant to demonize France for its exasperating refusal to support a war against Iraq".