PARIS – In the United States, sadly, the death of four soldiers in Afghanistan is the sort of routine event that barely makes the evening news. In France, on the other hand, which has seen far fewer casualties in over 11 years of fighting, the killing of four French military trainers and the wounding of 15 more by an Afghan recruit on Friday, Jan. 20, is not only a tragedy, it is forcing leaders to reevaluate the entire mission. One doesn’t have to be unduly cynical to think that the impending presidential election is something of a factor.
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"The French army is in Afghanistan to serve the Afghan people, against terrorism and against the Taliban," a somber and visibly fatigued President Nicolas Sarkozy told diplomats in Paris after morning arrived with the bad news. "The French army isn't in Afghanistan so that Afghan soldiers fire at them."
While several top French officials initially suggested that a 21-year-old recruit, Abdul Mansour, was a Taliban fighter who had infiltrated Afghan army ranks, other indications suggest that he was a lone wolf or that he -- like millions of Afghans -- suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. A French security source told the conservative daily Le Figaro that Mansour, who was captured after the attack, asserted he had become enraged over the video of U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses.
What is certain is that the four flag-draped coffins that arrived in France in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 23 brought the French death toll in Afghanistan to 82 since 2001. Eleven years into a fight without a clear victory, the attack spurred Sarkozy to freeze France's training of Afghan soldiers and publicly mull withdrawing French troops on a sped-up timeline.
So, will Sarkozy's France "go wobbly," as Margaret Thatcher used to say, in Afghanistan? The president set the stage for a wobble when he suggested that France requires substantive assurances that Afghan authorities will properly vet recruits to avoid putting French trainers at unnecessary risk. Sarkozy promised to seek clarification during a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Paris slated for Jan 27. If he isn't convinced, Sarkozy suggested, France is gone.
But there are reasons to doubt Sarkozy's seriousness. If this attack, in a remote Afghan province, really shook the Elysée as much as the president suggested, should Washington be worried about the possibility of losing 3,600 French military personnel on the ground in Afghanistan in short order? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded remarkably unconcerned about that possibility after she expressed her condolences on Jan. 20. "I am in great sympathy with what happened to the French soldiers. It was terrible and I can certainly appreciate the strong feelings that are being expressed," Clinton said at a press conference with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "We are in close contact with our French colleagues and we have no reason to believe that France will do anything other than continue to be part of the very carefully considered transition process."
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