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March 13, 2026
“We’re Not Calling Things What They Are”
Years after leading opposition to the US war in Iraq, France’s Dominique de Villepin speaks out against another illegal war in the Middle East and Europe’s timid response.
Cole Stangler
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Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, during his appearance at the 107th Congress of Mayors of France in Paris on November 19, 2025.(Daniel Perron / Hans Lucas via AFP/ Getty Images)
Marseille—One could forgive Dominique de Villepin for feeling a bit of déjà-vu.
As France’s foreign minister in 2003, he led the charge at the United Nations Security Council against US attempts to drum up support for the invasion of Iraq, culminating in a widely celebrated speech decrying the use of force and hailing the power of diplomacy. It was ignored by Washington at the time, but his warning that an intervention would trigger “incalculable consequences” across the Middle East proved sadly prophetic.
That’s why I began our interview by asking about the parallels between the conflicts, expecting him to quickly lean into the similarities with the current horrors unleashed by the United States and Israel.
Instead, the 72-year old statesman launched into a long analysis emphasizing the differences—a spoken essay as well-structured as any address he might have given during his stint at the Quai d’Orsay. Today’s war, he told me over video from his office in Paris, is even more dangerous and more reckless than the one that ravaged the region more than two decades ago. And the muted response from European leaders stands in stark contrast to the days he took on a vial-clutching Colin Powell in New York—yet another reason why Villepin, out of government since serving as prime minister from 2005 to 2007 under center-right President Jacques Chirac, is mulling a potential presidential run of his own next spring.
Deep disagreements between Paris and Washington aside, Villepin recalled that the US decision to invade Iraq followed its participation in a multilateral initiative at the United Nations that involved weapons inspections. And while the Bush administration never won UN support for the war, it still managed to pull together something of an international coalition. Even US objectives in 2003 were “relatively clear,” if terribly misguided—as Villepin put it, driven by a “neoconservative ideology idea that one could impose democracy though force and that this democracy would allow the Middle East to enter a virtous cycle that would serve the entirety of the region.”
Today’s conflict, by contrast, lacks even a semblance of grounding at the United Nations. It is led by …
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Current Issue
March 13, 2026
“We’re Not Calling Things What They Are”
Years after leading opposition to the US war in Iraq, France’s Dominique de Villepin speaks out against another illegal war in the Middle East and Europe’s timid response.
Cole Stangler
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
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Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, during his appearance at the 107th Congress of Mayors of France in Paris on November 19, 2025.(Daniel Perron / Hans Lucas via AFP/ Getty Images)
Marseille—One could forgive Dominique de Villepin for feeling a bit of déjà-vu.
As France’s foreign minister in 2003, he led the charge at the United Nations Security Council against US attempts to drum up support for the invasion of Iraq, culminating in a widely celebrated speech decrying the use of force and hailing the power of diplomacy. It was ignored by Washington at the time, but his warning that an intervention would trigger “incalculable consequences” across the Middle East proved sadly prophetic.
That’s why I began our interview by asking about the parallels between the conflicts, expecting him to quickly lean into the similarities with the current horrors unleashed by the United States and Israel.
Instead, the 72-year old statesman launched into a long analysis emphasizing the differences—a spoken essay as well-structured as any address he might have given during his stint at the Quai d’Orsay. Today’s war, he told me over video from his office in Paris, is even more dangerous and more reckless than the one that ravaged the region more than two decades ago. And the muted response from European leaders stands in stark contrast to the days he took on a vial-clutching Colin Powell in New York—yet another reason why Villepin, out of government since serving as prime minister from 2005 to 2007 under center-right President Jacques Chirac, is mulling a potential presidential run of his own next spring.
Deep disagreements between Paris and Washington aside, Villepin recalled that the US decision to invade Iraq followed its participation in a multilateral initiative at the United Nations that involved weapons inspections. And while the Bush administration never won UN support for the war, it still managed to pull together something of an international coalition. Even US objectives in 2003 were “relatively clear,” if terribly misguided—as Villepin put it, driven by a “neoconservative ideology idea that one could impose democracy though force and that this democracy would allow the Middle East to enter a virtous cycle that would serve the entirety of the region.”
Today’s conflict, by contrast, lacks even a semblance of grounding at the United Nations. It is led by …
“We’re Not Calling Things What They Are”
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Politics
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Current Issue
March 13, 2026
“We’re Not Calling Things What They Are”
Years after leading opposition to the US war in Iraq, France’s Dominique de Villepin speaks out against another illegal war in the Middle East and Europe’s timid response.
Cole Stangler
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, during his appearance at the 107th Congress of Mayors of France in Paris on November 19, 2025.(Daniel Perron / Hans Lucas via AFP/ Getty Images)
Marseille—One could forgive Dominique de Villepin for feeling a bit of déjà-vu.
As France’s foreign minister in 2003, he led the charge at the United Nations Security Council against US attempts to drum up support for the invasion of Iraq, culminating in a widely celebrated speech decrying the use of force and hailing the power of diplomacy. It was ignored by Washington at the time, but his warning that an intervention would trigger “incalculable consequences” across the Middle East proved sadly prophetic.
That’s why I began our interview by asking about the parallels between the conflicts, expecting him to quickly lean into the similarities with the current horrors unleashed by the United States and Israel.
Instead, the 72-year old statesman launched into a long analysis emphasizing the differences—a spoken essay as well-structured as any address he might have given during his stint at the Quai d’Orsay. Today’s war, he told me over video from his office in Paris, is even more dangerous and more reckless than the one that ravaged the region more than two decades ago. And the muted response from European leaders stands in stark contrast to the days he took on a vial-clutching Colin Powell in New York—yet another reason why Villepin, out of government since serving as prime minister from 2005 to 2007 under center-right President Jacques Chirac, is mulling a potential presidential run of his own next spring.
Deep disagreements between Paris and Washington aside, Villepin recalled that the US decision to invade Iraq followed its participation in a multilateral initiative at the United Nations that involved weapons inspections. And while the Bush administration never won UN support for the war, it still managed to pull together something of an international coalition. Even US objectives in 2003 were “relatively clear,” if terribly misguided—as Villepin put it, driven by a “neoconservative ideology idea that one could impose democracy though force and that this democracy would allow the Middle East to enter a virtous cycle that would serve the entirety of the region.”
Today’s conflict, by contrast, lacks even a semblance of grounding at the United Nations. It is led by …
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