France's Sarkozy is in the Same Political Situation as George Bush

Considering the atypical polarization of French politics since the last election, Sarkozy's road to being elected again is the same as the one George Bush took. Mobilizing conservatives and defending an abstract French way of life



Jean-Marie Le Pen is very old. How old you say? He is older than even John McCain and might not live to see the next election to make opinions about it. Le Pen's participation during the 2007 French elections allowed Sarkozy to capitalize in the second round on some anti-immigrant National Front single issue voters. It wasn't the deciding factor in his victory but gave a taste of a demographic that can be courted in the future. Sarkozy realizes that he won due to greater infighting within the center left opposition and his Rudy Giuliani-esque law and order posturing. He knows the center left will reorganize a bit further to the right to undermine his support in the center and make a sustained coordinated effort to dislodge him in 2012. Five year terms allow plenty of space and breathing room to lick the wounds and make new alliances.

French center-left has more than enough tools and time to capitalize on the economic downturn, prevent Sarkozy's various short and long term economic stimulus measures from being successful, and exploit the potential rift between Paris and the new American administration (with Obama trying to make inroads with Muslims, Sarkozy finds himself in a difficult position). Sarkozy sees that the only way to solve the issue of illegal residents is to socially integrate them by legalizing their status. That of course would add to the numerical strength of voting blocks for candidates like Royale. The process of recognition and proper assimilation itself is political suicide for coalition building with conservative factions in society. Since the political hyperpolarization of 2007 election, it is very difficult for the president to peal away those who voted for Royale from the center-left. People's hatred of him is not waning.

As such, Sarkozy's only real options are:

1) to move further to the socially conservative right by getting the disgruntled La Pen voters to the polls in larger numbers than in 2007

2) to tap into the potential conservative factions of those who don't vote (even for Le Pen) because they know their guy wont win. This can even include those in France who still engage in Christian mythology but never bothered to really participate in the strictly secular French politics

3) to split the youth vote by polarizing the youth along nationalist militarist lines and using his own youthful energies to that end

4) utilizing increased support of the wealthy for media manipulation and social relations cover to achieve the above 3.

Sounds familiar? Yes. The president of France is George Bush in 2002. The economic crisis and gains by nationalist anti-immigrant parties in European Parliament allows Sarkozy a cover of international fiscal emergency and worry to mobilize new supporters. This would include the elderly and disgruntled underemployed young whites and involve constant play on their insecurities and passions. Such a road to 2012 reelections would have to be walked right away to build cultural momentum through media repetition.

The statement concerning Burqas not being welcome in France appears to be the first salvo in that direction. Since Obama criticized France in his Cairo speech by making a point to describe how America does not push secularism on its Muslims, Sarkozy can now begin to move away from public perception that he is more pro-American candidate than Royale by distancing himself from Washington's policies. Surrounding European countries are too preoccupied (with making their annual GDP reversals smaller than projected) to expand too much energy on lifting an eyebrow towards harder nationalist secularist tone coming from Paris. Sarkozy might not have EU's rotating presidency anymore but 2009 allows his country to be in the driver's seat of EU policy more than ever. Germany's focus on the upcoming elections takes Berlin out of the international picture briefly. Angela Merkel will not side her center-right Christian Democrats with Muslim immigrants abroad as she runs for re-election amidst a deep recession.

We can expect President's Union for a Popular Movement to gradually increase the use of social wedge issues like the Burqa ban and even a possible outreach to France's remaining Christian communities. He has already shown a willingness to appeal to militarists by advocating a stronger EU defense force and intervening to broker peace between Russia and Georgia last summer. As former minister of the interior and manager of police structures, Sarkozy is comfortable with rigid hierarchical organizations as well as interdepartmental cooperation between such structures. He really is well positioned to pick up the torch of the war on terror by stressing continental security and defense.

Using Turkey and Iran as geopolitical threats to European way of life plays well to demographics in key EU member states. Unlike Bush, Sarkozy has more skill and intelligence to create a domestic impression that he is a popular, competent, and moderate internationally. Currently, Paris is capitalizing on Washington's strategic public non-commitment to ongoing protests in Iran. Sarkozy's statement on defending women from disrespect (by not welcoming the fundamentalist Muslim requirement of a face cover) comes at a strategically appropriate time. The issue of speaking out against fundamentalist modes of life is bound to grow with the background of Iranian unrest and generate even more debate than before. The elevation of dialogue itself allows the president to show both the leftist anti-American youth and the anti-immigrant conservatives that he is serious about defending the French way of life autonomously.

The wild card is the international crisis itself and the depths to which United States' retracting economic bubble will pull Western Europe after it. As things stand now, continuous recession without further deterioration allows Sarkozy to claim he stabilized the country, to increase scapegoating, and to try to get re-elected on notion that you can't change horses in midstream when restructuring the economy. Conditions paralleling America's current slide into a deep depression are historically unpredictable however.

Ahmadinejad is Very Capable of Suppressing Protests in Iran

The students in Iran aren't up against a foreign backed puppet, a decadent old monarch, or an impudent oligarch. They are up against a former elite special forces leader who specialized in divide and conquer tactics, intelligence, and asymmetric warfare.


The students in Iran aren't up against a foreign backed puppet, a decadent old monarch, or an impudent oligarch. They are up against a former elite special forces leader who specialized in divide and conquer tactics, intelligence, and asymmetric warfare. Ahmadinejad was one of the founders and high ranking organizers of the cream of the crop of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Quds force. The Revolutionary Guards are the private army of the Iranian ruling party with their own navy, special forces, intelligence, and militias. The IRG is a separate loyal army that competes with the regular army for resources and gets privileged access when it comes to training, talent acquisition, and funding. This competition is analogous to how Waffen SS in Nazi Germany was the vanguard of National Socialism, competed with the regular army, and often got preferential treatment when it came to talent, recruitment, cutting edge technology, and political influence.

Although IRG has a public ideology for recruitment purposes, its main task ( of keeping the ruling party in power ) forces it into very pragmatic decision making. The Quds force is IRG's CIA/special forces equivalent and like all special/intelligence services worldwide, is completely pragmatic when it comes to alliances with ideological enemies to achieve is goals. The Quds force is not above funding itself with drug money, bribes, and covert business dealings. IRG also employs thousands of ideological youngsters in a civilian militia (Basij) through using the clergy's infrastructure.

Lets make a semi-humorous analogy of what Iranian students are up against using American Republican party in 2004 as an example. Imagine if in 2004, the Republican party had a well funded army to "preserve the Reagan Revolution." This Reagan Revolution Guards had its own bases and access to tanks, factories, aircraft, and almost as many soldiers as the regular American military. The best of the Reagan guards were in elite Freedom Corps that combined CIA, FBI, NSA, homeland security, and Green Berets. Imagine if the Reagan Guards also employed an enormous civilian militia consisting of young Baptist zealots who were called say, College Republicans. Imagine if College Republicans were given legal power to assist the police, the Reagan Guard military, and did the bidding of the top GOP chairman. Imagine if GOP also consisted of a tight alliance of oligarchs and the clergy ( ha ha ). Imagine if like ROTC, College Republicans had local headquarters in every college and sent geeky religious goons to break up drinking parties, harass couples, beat up homosexuals, organize pro-regime rallies, disrupt opposition gatherings, and had the power to call in for police reinforcement whenever they felt like it. Finally, imagine that it financially paid to be a part of the College Republicans and the Reagan Guards since the GOP party oligarchs controlled the major industries of the country and only shared the profits with supporters through job perks and higher salaries. 2004 comes along and GOP mullahs only allow George Bush and John McCain to run. They then blatantly manipulate the elections with state controlled media to swing the elections towards Bush and use College Republicans and the police to make sure there isn't any unrest.

Makes one's blood boil doesn't it? In most of the world, including United States, there are always more uneducated poor religious people than bourgeois liberals and secular intellectuals. In Iran, the uneducated and the poor have been effectively manipulated by the wealthy clergy for close to thirty years.

The IRG are there to pacify the urban areas (where the intellectuals and middle class are dominant) and to counterbalance the underfunded non-ideological military. The students are substantially split between themselves along class and education lines through the Basij student union. Ahmadinejad knows that pacification of youth is key in a country where the average age is very low compared to aging European countries. Just like Putin promoted youth organization NASHI in Russia, Ahmadinejad made sure to promote Basij as a loyal student body. How reliable they are is yet to be seen.

NASHI is organized primarily around nationalism and job perks just like Hitler youth was. Basij is also organized around nationalism and job perks but also has the religious fundamentalist element. Considering that neither NASHI, college republicans, or Hitler youth have any monopoly on nationalism, that might be the weakest bond within Basij. In terms of job perks, the current regime has not made much effort to diversify from oil and unlike Russia they don't have too many other commodities to withstand the severe recent drop in oil prices. Job perks as an incentive may increasing lay in the promise of a liberal reformist movement. That leaves fundamentalist Islam as key glue to motivate the Basij youth. As most people know the trademark of the deeply religious youths is geekyness, unsexy clumsy prudishness, and often sadistic authoritarian unpleasantness of the uneducated. Iranian youths like youths anywhere are not immune to ridicule, fashion, trend following, internet, and the appeal of a sexier more liberated society. It is not known how long Basij can exert energies against the pro Mousavi protests taking this into account.

That really leaves the job of suppression and the last line of defense in the hands of the special forces, intelligence, and IRG themselves. Ahmadinejad is relatively young, cunning, and energetic. As a pragmatic former intelligence officer, he has sharp strategic neural capacity to do problem solving. He might not be Putin level or George Bush Sr. level intellect, but the growing role of the position of the Iranian president in recent years (who isn't supposed to be in control of foreign policy), shows that Ahmadinejad is very capable at building alliances and increasing personal power. As such, it's very possible that he'll be able to find enough allies to create a believable impression that the protests are dying out, do mass swarm arrests in smaller cities to scare the key opposition leaders in Tehran, and string the world along until the bulk of the students are demoralized and dispersed. It remains to be seen whether Khomeni and Ahmadinejad have enough access to economic resources to create such a coalition.