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Lucia A Keegan  07/18/2006 03:08:55 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 004825 
 
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SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION REPORT - Middle East - G8 Summit 
 
 
PARIS - Monday, July 17, 2006 
 
(A) SUBJECTS COVERED IN TODAY'S REPORT: 
 
Middle East 
G8 Summit 
 
(B) SUMMARY OF COVERAGE: 
 
Although Lebanon leads all of the print and electronic top stories 
and commentaries, the G8 meeting in Saint Petersburg is the second, 
and related, item. 
 
Right-of-center Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche asks: "Who 
wants Lebanon's death?" The editorial by Jacques Esperandieu laments 
that the international community worries over the "disproportionate" 
Israeli riposte instead of focusing on the fact that the "Middle 
East is on the edge of chaos." Right-of-center Le Figaro's editorial 
condemns the West for being more preoccupied with getting its 
citizens out of Lebanon than with trying to find a solution to end 
the conflict. The statement issued by the G8 members on the 
Israeli-Lebanese conflict is seen as "harsh in form and vague in 
content" by regional editorialist Jean-Claude Kiefer. (See Part C) 
 
Left-of-center Le Monde carries an op-ed entitled "Defending the 
G8." (See Part C) 
 
Right-of-center Le Figaro reports that bilateral meetings between 
the U.S. and Russia made it possible to come to an agreement 
concerning the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. "The two great 
Cold War superpowers opened the ball at the G8 with a bilateral 
meeting which gave a flavor of G2 +6 to the rest of the Summit." 
 
Right-of-center Le Figaro reports that the UN is condemning North 
Korea "After eleven days of equivocation... A compromise was found 
between Washington's hard line approach and the moderation advocated 
by China and Russia." 
 
In left-of-center Le Monde, Washington correspondent Corine Lesnes 
writes discusses the "Condistas," those Republicans who believe that 
Secretary of State Rice has a chance at the nomination to be the 
 
SIPDIS 
Party's Presidential candidate in 2008. "The Secretary tirelessly 
repeats that she is not a candidate... but for the Republicans she 
is the symbol of redemption... and even if she has not made any 
major breakthroughs on the Iranian or North Korean nuclear issues, 
she has succeeded in terms of her image. According to a Washington 
Post poll, she is the most popular person in the Bush Administration 
in front of the President himself by 20 points... As Secretary of 
State she finds favor in the eyes of moderate Democrats... In 17 
months she has spearheaded an impressive transformation of American 
diplomacy. Washington has given more to its allies or adversaries 
than it has ever done before. India was assured of a nuclear 
cooperation that it had been seeking for over thirty years... Iran 
has been lured by the promise of direct talks... Contrary to her 
predecessor Colin Powell... she has the President's ear... When she 
left the White House she took a certain number of advisors with her 
including Jim Wilkinson... who has set up a media campaign to boost 
her image... which surprisingly has been unaffected by the failure 
in Iraq." 
 
 (C) SUPPORTING TEXT/BLOCK QUOTES: 
 
Middle East 
 
"Urgency" 
The editorial by Jacques Esperandieu in right-of-center Sunday paper 
Le Journal du Dimanche (07/16): "There are plenty of good reasons to 
mobilize the international community to react faced with the 
situation in the Middle East and yet division and inefficiency 
prevail. Without surprise, the U.S. is saying that Israel has the 
right to defend itself. Most Europeans, including France tends to 
see the scope of Israeli retaliation as disproportionate... The UN 
meets but decides nothing... Yet there is an urgency to act. Iraq is 
in the throes of a full-scale civil war, Iran is continuing its 
crusade toward acquiring the bomb and the region as a whole is on 
the verge of explosion." 
"Irresponsibility" 
Left-of-center Le Monde's unsigned editorial notes that (07/16/17): 
"The international community seems to be more powerless than ever. 
It is paying the price for years of indifference and passivity with 
regard to the deterioration of the Israeli Palestinian conflict... 
In the Middle East the Bush Administration has invented a sort of 
empty shell called the Quartet that is supposed to provide a 
framework for negotiations... and whose aim it is to pretend to 
favor a dialogue between Israeli and Palestinians. The Quartet 
serves no purpose whatsoever. Who even knows when it met for the 
last time? All of its members have chosen to remain powerless for 
various reasons. Since George Bush took office, the U.S. abandoned 
its role as the 'honest broker' sticking to Israel's position no 
matter what that may be. Russia has no particular strategy, except 
to be a thorn in America's side. Europeans have a hard time being 
heard since politically they do not exist. And as we saw in last 
Friday's pathetic demonstration at the Security Council, the UN is 
impotent and a reflection of the unwillingness of the rest of the 
world." 
 
"G8 - Out of the Game" 
Gerard Dupuy comments in left-of-center Liberation (07/17): "The G8 
leaders, the crhme de la crhme of world power, seems to have latched 
on to the conflict between Israel and Lebanon only to demonstrate, 
once again, its total incapacity to act in a vaguely effective way 
in this region... through the conflict with Israel, Hezbollah is 
seeking to destabilize the West that aside from sending life rafts 
to its citizens and approving Israel's retaliation while condemning 
its harshness, shows the extent to which it is out of the game in 
the Middle East." 
 
"Getting Involved" 
Francois Ernewein in Catholic La Croix (07/17): "In the last few 
days what ambitious proposals has the international community made 
to promote peace? No need to rack your brain, there are none. The 
key to the international community's powerlessness lies in the 
age-old acceptance of the situation in the Middle East... This 
disorganized diplomacy has only served to give legitimacy to the 
various parties in their headlong rush towards violence... instead 
of telling them once and for all 'enough!'" 
 
"Powerless" 
The editorial by Francois-Xavier Pietri in centrist economic La 
Tribune (07/17): "We were expecting a G8 that would focus on energy 
security, but instead it has focused on security in the Middle East 
and the possible consequences on Western economies... The 80 dollar 
barrel is just a heartbeat away... And world diplomacy seems 
completely at a loss... the great powers of the G8 are in fact 
powerless and the Summit appears to be a forum for settling old 
scores between Russia, the U.S. and Europe... rather than coming to 
the aid of staggering Arab diplomacy." 
 
"Too Powerful" 
For Jean-Pierre Bel in regional daily La Nouvelle Republique du 
Centre (07/17): "The G8 is not powerless, it is too powerful. It has 
become a symbol of an excess of power that destabilizes the world. 
The members of the club of 8 are too entangled in protecting their 
own national interests to be able to act rapidly and decisively in 
the Middle East." 
 
"Lebanon : The Wager of Weapons" 
Pierre Rousselin editorializes in right-of-center Le Figaro (07/17): 
"The evacuation of the citizens of the Western countries is intended 
as a way to empty Lebanon of all of the potential hostages that 
pro-Iranian Hezbollah could be tempted to take when things, 
inevitably, get worse... But we must be careful. If the evacuation 
of our citizens does not go hand-in-hand with a diplomatic 
initiative, the Lebanese people will see it as the West's abandoning 
them... The U.S., without whom nothing can be accomplished in the 
region, have yet to send a high-ranking envoy." 
 
G8 Summit 
 
"Defending the Idea of the G8" 
Eric Le Boucher writes in left-of-center Le Monde (07/16-17):  "The 
G8 has a bad image mainly because it is seen at once as being too 
big and too small, incapable of resolving the global crises of 
today. Bad because the final statement, prepared in advance by the 
Sherpas... is the archetype of stonewalling... Do these types of 
Summits still serve a purpose? If one looks at the four priorities 
set out by President Chirac in Les Echos on July 13 the question 
appears particularly relevant. Discussing energy policy without any 
of the Gulf countries present and when President Putin himself is 
one of the principal troublemakers seems absurd. And what of the 
Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. did not ratify and that no country 
respects? How can global warming be discussed when big CO2 producers 
such as China and India are absent? Africa? No leader from the 
continent is present. Iran? This may be the only topic that will be 
usefully discussed... Reforming existing informal (G8) or formal 
(UN, IMF, WTO...) international fora is urgent. In this context the 
idea of the G8 is good... multilateralism may not look like a 
French-style garden, but so what as long as it continues to bear 
fruit." STAPLETON