Deja Vu All Over Again: Algeria, France, and Us

Deja Vu All Over Again: Algeria, France, and Us

Mini Teaser: Barely three decades after fighting one of the bitterest of all colonial wars, France and Algeria are again embroiled in conflict.

by Author(s): Matthew Connelly

If not for this ominous prospect, some might dismiss French actions in Algeria as just another example of how this self-important people cannot resist as chance to strut on the world stage. But the parallel responses of many American analysts indicate that the implications of the unfolding crisis are more profound than merely adding new tensions to a relationship that has never been relaxed. What we have found most annoying about the French are really those things that make them like ourselves -- including a sense of a national mission to be both an example to the world and an active force for good, a belief that we can know other peoples' interests better than they do themselves, and an adventurist streak in seeking to prove it to them. So while some Americans warned the French in the late 1950s that confusing Algerian nationalists with communist-would cause "another Indochina", others were even then laying the foundation for our own folly in Vietnam.

Nowadays, American pundits are already asking us to accept the full panoply of anti-communist arguments, dusted off and repolished for the new opponent. These include the totalitarian model for our enemies (fundamentalists are like communists who were like Nazis), the old apology for embarrassing allies (only our dictatorships can evolve into democracies), and the domino theory for backing them to the bitter end (as Algeria goes so goes North Africa, then the Gulf, then . . . the world). But before remounting the Cold War-horse, we ought to examine on a country-by-country basis whether such a commitment conforms to our real interests. Perhaps an Islamic revolution in Egypt, for instance, would be so costly to us as to justify continuing to throw good money after bad, but we should have that debate now rather than the day we face the same Hobson's choices as the French. And if, after all, we find it difficult to resist the allure of a new crusade, before surrendering let us first ask ourselves whether we are not beginning to resemble a certain gentleman from La Mancha.

Essay Types: Essay