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I think Bruno has captured it well. Re-read The Economist interview carefully... https://twitter.com/macaesbruno/status/1194498419764711425">https://twitter.com/macaesbru...
Macron emphasizes the ârise of radical political Islamâ as âundoubtedly the foremost enemy of European humanist values...â while suggesting that Orban agrees with him on a European accomodation with Putin outside of NATO parameters. On what basis? Well...
âthat weâre aligned on the terrorist issue, but we donât work enough on it together. How do we achieve that? We get our [intelligence] services to work together, we share a vision of the threat, we intervene perhaps in a more...â
â... coordinated way against Islamist terrorism throughout our neighbourhood.â Thus Macron repeats uncritically a favored Kremlin talking point about sheared counterterrorism goals â except Moscowâs version of counterterrorism is drastically different from Europeâs.
And the belief that the FSB and SVR are honest brokers with the West when it comes to Islamist terror is, well, ridiculous: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/opinion/russia-is-a-terrible-ally-against-terrorism.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/2...
The reason the Kremlin was so delighted with this interview goes beyond the âbrain death of NATOâ comment. It is Macron saying that heâs done with trans-atlanticism as a common security doctrine. He is declaring himself, on Muslim migration, reliance on Washington, etc...
... closer to the Orbanist model, at least in terms of foreign policy (if not creeping authoritarianism). This model broadly defined is: âYeah, sure, weâll stay in NATO and the EU but these are phantom organizations and weâll take what we can from them while...â
â... pursuing our own agenda, even if it runs counter to what our partners would like us to do.â France suffered more than any European country from ISIS attacks (it also produced more foreign fighters for ISIS than any country in Europe). And Macron is fed up with...
... asking a by-your-leave from Washington or Brussels on how France should conduct itself abroad. He sees NE Syria not through the prism of Americaâs forfeiture of its superpower status but the reverse: arrogating to itself the role of arbiter of Franceâs CT policy.
Basically, he wants to fight jihadism on his own terms, be it in Libya (where he aligned with Moscow on backing Haftar) or in Syria (where, for all his talk of Basharâs CW atrocities, he is primarily concerned with ISIS).
And he is done with all the happy talk about â89 and a Europe whole and free. In this context, Macronâs comments on North Macedonia and Bosnia â basically that theyâre havens of jihad and unsavory (read: Muslim) Europeans â become more intelligible and coherent.
There is a sneaking admiration in this interview for how Putin deals with these problems, absent annoying power-sharing mechanisms. Macron is telegraphing his desire to make France more unilateralist. Also explains his posture re: Ukraine and his outreach to Tehran.
