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Lucia A Keegan  09/05/2006 05:27:36 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

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SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION REPORT - Iran Iraq Lebanon and the Middle 
East 
PARIS - Thursday, August 31, 2006 
 
 
(A) SUBJECTS COVERED IN TODAY'S REPORT: 
 
Iran 
Iraq 
Lebanon and the Middle East 
 
B) SUMMARY OF COVERAGE: 
 
Iran's new challenge to the West is the lead story in today's 
Liberation which headlines "Iran Master of the Game" and adds that 
"Tehran, feeling untouchable, has launched a new phase in its 
uranium enrichment phase." The editorial by Gerard Dupuy entitled 
"Powerlessness" fingers the UN, the U.S. and the West in general 
comments: "Rarely has the world's establishment, the UNSC, been so 
openly challenged..." A separate article analyzes the divisions 
within the Bush Administration on Iran, pointing to the neo-cons' 
opposition to Secretary Rice's pro-dialogue stance with Iran. In Le 
Figaro, Alain Barluet reiterates that "Iran is ignoring the major 
powers." (See Part C) 
 
La Croix leads with Iraq and the headline: "The Militia War Is 
Bleeding Iraq." In his editorial Dominique Gerbaud asks "How to be 
an Iraqi?" as he analyzes the ethnic, religious and tribal make up 
of Iraq. He concludes: "The Iraqis have a Constitution, a government 
and a soccer team, but they have no state and no feeling of being 
first and foremost Iraqis." Inside, the lead article is entitled 
"The U.S. Wants to Win the Battle of Baghdad" but underscores that 
"the declarations made by the U.S. and the Iraqi government have 
intensified the terrorist's level of violence because they are 
determined to sabotage their security plan for Baghdad." (See Part 
C) In Liberation, a cartoon shows President Bush saying to Secretary 
Rumsfeld: "So, in Iraq, we're putting an end to the carnage?" To 
which Secretary Rumsfeld says: "Patience: as soon as the last 
suicide bomber has killed himself, victory is ours." The editorial 
board in Les Echos reviews a novel on Iraq in which the hero turns 
to resisting the U.S. army after a "violent and arrogant village 
search by the army of occupation... (The hero's reaction) helps us 
to understand better why the American plan for Iraq was not a viable 
one. It is not a matter of politics, as the naove neo-con 
strategists who led Bush into this disaster believed. It is a matter 
of culture... While the author understands that thousand year old 
traditions cannot be changed overnight, President Bush has yet to." 
 
Kofi Anann's visit to Israel and Olmert's refusal to lift the 
blockade are announced on the front page of Le Figaro, which adds: 
"Kofi Annan left Israel empty handed." (See Part C) The UN Secretary 
General was interviewed this morning on Europe 1 radio: "The leaders 
I met feel that the international community can help them. This is a 
good opportunity to establish a long-lasting peace." On the 
blockade, he said that "there is a lot of work to do, but the 
situation can still evolve; it has to... The situation is still 
fragile but it will get better when UNIFIL is deployed in the 
region..." He also said "the Palestinians and their suffering were 
not forgotten..." On his trip to Syria and Iran, he said that "if it 
can help peace, I must convince those who can play a role in the 
region and try to make them understand that there are rules that 
must be accepted by the international community," adding: "sometimes 
we have to shake hands to save lives." 
 
French thinker Dominique Moisi points to the issue of Israeli 
security as a source of tension in transatlantic relations. (See 
Part C) 
 
Les Echos announces today's international conference in Stockholm on 
Lebanon's reconstruction, estimated between 3 and 15 billion 
dollars. Les Echos interviews former Lebanese Finance Minister 
Georges Corm, whose estimate leans towards the lower figure. 
 
Le Monde interviews the head of UNIFIL operations, Jean-Marie 
Guehenno: "A peacekeeping operation must always use force as a last 
recourse and not as a first response. We are counting on the 
Lebanese government to take on all of its responsibilities. But we 
will have the means to ensure that we are not pushed around, and we 
will not let ourselves be pushed around... Over the course of its 
existence, the UNIFIL has lost almost 300 soldiers; no peacekeeping 
mission is without risks." 
 
Domestic news leads with the continuing downward trend for 
unemployment, which has dropped under the 9% mark, the lowest in 
five years according to Le Figaro. PM Villepin is expected to make 
several announcements to boost employment in companies with fewer 
than 20 employees. 
 
Today's second domestic story revolves around the Socialist Party 
and the latest poll which shows that Segolene Royal has lost 7 
percentage points from 54 to 47% after the party's summer 
university. Says Le Parisien: "This is a first for her." Le 
Parisien's poll also shows that all other socialist contenders for 
the presidential party nomination have dropped in popularity, except 
for former PM Lionel Jospin. Le Figaro publishes polling results 
from weekly Le Point, highlighting the commanding leads enjoyed by 
Royal and Interior Minister Sarkozy in their respective camps (PS: 
57% Sgolhne Royal, 15% Lionel Jospin, 11% Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 
9% Jack Lang; vice UMP:  78% Nicolas Sarkozy, 10% Dominique de 
Villepin, 6% Michhle Alliot-Marie, 6% Jean-Louis Borloo). 
 
(C) SUPPORTING TEXT/BLOCK QUOTES: 
 
Iran 
 
"Powerlessness" 
Gerard Dupuy in left-of-center Liberation (08/31): "Iran is 
demonstrating its determination to acquire the bomb by launching a 
new phase in the enrichment program... Rarely has the planetary 
establishment, i.e. the UNSC, been so openly challenged and 
scorned... No one believes in the sanctions that will eventually be 
imposed: they are too easily by-passed... Because they know this, 
Bush's hawks are openly dreaming of a new war, a repeat of Iraq for 
Iran. This particular danger seems to have been avoided. And while 
we have no choice but to accept the UN's dysfunction when it comes 
to regional crises, when it comes to the atomic bomb... the 
situation is hardly the same... The UN's powerlessness is primarily 
the result of the West's, especially the U.S.'s impotence. The ban 
on atomic weapons would be more credible if eight other nations did 
not already have the bomb... In Iran's case, possession of the bomb 
is made worse because it stands as a symbol of Iran's aggressive 
ideology against one of the UN members, Israel, and because it opens 
the door to nuttier regimes, such as North Korea's. Yesterday we 
took one more step towards the imbalance of terror." 
 
"The Bush Administration Divided" 
Philippe Grangereau in left-of-center Liberation (08/31): "Can the 
U.S., in the long run, launch a military attack on Iran to keep the 
third member of the 'axis of evil' from acquiring the bomb? The 
White House, the Pentagon and American intelligence are grappling 
with this question. The Iranian crisis has considerably divided the 
Bush Administration since Secretary Rice opted on May 31st to put an 
end to Washington's policy of non-dialogue with Iran and to work 
with the EU... Since then, according to Philip Gordon of the 
Brookings Institute, 'Secretary Rice has become an object of hatred 
for the Administration's neo-conservatives...' But Gordon also 
believes the U.S. will pursue the diplomatic path, because the 
Pentagon does not know where Iran's nuclear installations are 
located, the collateral damage of a strike would be considerable and 
the diplomatic cost too high." 
 
Iraq 
 
"How to be an Iraqi?" 
Dominique Gerbaud in Catholic La Croix (08/31): "A car bombing in 
Baghdad is not even news anymore. The Americans, whose interest is 
not to boost the figures, note an average of five violent attacks 
everyday in the Iraqi capital... Since the US-led intervention 
began, 50,000 civilian Iraqis have been killed in this civil war... 
The cycle of reprisals by the various ethnic groups is leading Iraq 
into chaos... The Iraqis are at war among themselves because they 
have not been given the necessary tools for reconciliation... The 
Constitution is not enough to create a feeling of unity among the 
different ethnic, religious and tribal groups... Such unity will be 
impossible as long as the country is occupied by a foreign power... 
The Iraqis have a Constitution, a government and a soccer team, but 
they have no state and no feeling of being first and foremost 
Iraqis." 
Lebanon and the Middle East 
 
"Olmert Refuses to Lift Blockade" 
Patrick Saint-Paul in right-of-center Le Figaro (08/31): "Kofi Annan 
has walked away from Jerusalem empty handed, despite his goodwill 
effort. His request that the blockade be lifted was rejected by 
Israel's PM. Things might have been different if Annan had been able 
to bring news from Lebanon that the kidnapped Israeli soldiers were 
alive." 
 
"The Middle East and Europe's Weakness" 
Dominique Moisi, Director of IFRI in right-of-center Les Echos 
(08/31): "When it comes to the transatlantic relationship, nothing 
is more potentially a source of tension than the issue of Israel's 
security. From this point of view and despite the rapprochement 
between the US and France... the latest conflict in the Middle East 
has served to widen the psychological rift that has divided Europe 
and America since the onset of the war in Iraq... The end of the 
'love story' between Israel and Europe... is an added element to a 
generalized trend rather than the result of a single event... The 
European opposition to an ever stronger alliance between Israel and 
the US as well as the integration and sensibility of a large Muslim 
population in Europe explain in part this disenchantment." 
STAPLETON