France’s Macron embraces new Mideast role
Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel, other actions create vacuum
PARIS — A year ago, no one would have envisioned President Emmanuel Macron of France as the public face of Western diplomacy in the Middle East. But that is not the case anymore.
President Donald Trump’s decision this past week to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, his antiMuslim tweets and his State Department staffing cuts have signaled to many a retreat of U.S. diplomacy.
That has made room for those who want to expand their presence on the world stage, Macron among them. He has quickly embraced a more visible role in the Middle East, especially as Britain and Germany have become preoccupied with domestic politics.
Macron called Trump two days before the U.S. president’s recognition of Jerusalem to tell him that France was “troubled” by the move.
He personally intervened in November to stabilize Lebanon when the country’s prime minister resigned and many believed Saudi Arabia was behind it. He weighed in with a plan to halt sub-Saharan migrants before they could reach Libya. Now, Macron is positioning France to help shape the postwar policy in Syria.
By contrast, the United States has seemed reluctant to engage in policymaking in Syria.
“If this was five years ago, there would already have been American diplomatic involvement” to extricate the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, from the grip of the Saudis, said Gilles Kepel, an expert on Islam and a professor at Sciences Po in France. Kepel added that “the Trump administration is unreadable because the president tweets something in the morning and he does the contrary in the afternoon.”
One measure of the depth of the U.S. withdrawal is that even in countries that Trump views as friendly, like Saudi Arabia, there is no ambassador in place. The same is true for six other countries in the region.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denied this past week that unfilled senior diplomatic positions had affected the department’s engagement. Speaking in Vienna, he said: “I want to say this because a lot of stuff gets written out there in the media about the hollowed-out State Department and the empty hallways that I’m walking in, where all I can hear are the echoes of my footsteps. And it’s not true.”
He added: “We have great, competent, capable career people that have stepped up in leadership positions while we’re working to fill those roles, and we haven’t missed a beat. Not one.”