I find it quite disturbing that not a single allegation is properly sourced. "According to knowledgeable individuals" means absolutely nothing. Not a single journalist would dare make such accusation on such a thin basis, especially since what follows are not facts but opinions. We don't even know if those individuals are close to the french government or to some faction in libya.
I sincerely hope foreign usa foreign policy is based on more solidely grounded analysis.
To be honest, as a French person I didn't see anything new in this cable. None of this was secret, it was pretty much the official stance, except stripped of the humanitarian aspects such as the ongoing civil war and repression or the Arab Spring.
It feels like Hillary's advisor was merely watching French TV and transcribing what journalists and politicians said publicly. The mention of Bernard Henri-Levy proves it. When you sum up a geopolitical situation in a few sentence, you don't waste any explaining BHL is a "semi-joke", unless your own knowledge is cursory.
With regards to the French population, you have to put it in context (April 2011, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Arab_Spring ). The Arab Spring was still going "smoothly" elsewhere, and we were all watching Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and Algeria where things were handled "more or less peacefully" back then, at least to the French eye. Qadaffi's repression, on the other hand, was violent from the get-go.
It was a perfect storm (1) for Sarkozy, as on top of the things mentioned in the cable, he had to prove that he was serious with his Mediterranean Union, and more importantly he had to disprove the allegations that Qadaffi financed his election.
Wether it was the right thing to do or not, I personally have no idea, but it was pretty much a no-brainer at the time for France to distance itself from Qadaffi during his civil war, and fuel the opposition.
(1): unrelated, but maybe I should have said "homerun" in this case? My English fails me.
As a french person, i beg to differ. The only publicaly stated reasons for the intervention was humanitarian, to prevent kadafi from decimating his own population. You could read other opinions on various newspapers, but nothing really based on facts, only more or less valid assumptions depending on your political background.
That's true for the most part, I mean, the government obviously didn't mention some of the things that are in the cable unless they deliberately wanted to shoot themselves in the foot, but the news would systematically feature pieces about Qadaffi's awkward presence on Bastille Day along with the oil, gold and silver.
My point is that the cable was nothing more than a short compilation of common knowledge and hearsay, like you said, "more or less valid assumptions" that you could easily get by switching radio channels a few times during your tuesday morning commute.
Alternative to properly sourcing is credibility of the author.
When quality newspaper or journalist releases important article with anonymous sources, they rely on their credibility.
It's the same for diplomatic communication. Important sources don't want to end in government papers. They are named only in classified memos. Requiring sources and suspecting employees faking it is not the way to go. If the suspicion arises, people are called back.
That's a good point. But in this particular situation, we know,and the memo says it as well, that lybian were highly divided into rival factions. Some were probably sided with the french gov and others against. In both cases, you can't rely on any of those factions to provide an honest reporting of the true reasons for the french actions.
The only reasoning can be made either from french sources inside the government, that is the people who took the decisions, or by careful fact analysis and deductions. Quoting "knowledgeable sources" without mentionning the reason those sources are knowledgeable is deeply insufficient to base any decision upon, IMHO.
foreign usa foreign policy is based on more solidely grounded analysis
Given the extent to which people believed that (a) Iraq had something to do with al-Quaeda and (b) Ahmed Chalabi was a credible source and leader-in-exile, I think you may be disappointed there.
(The "dodgy dossier" and "WMD ready to launch in 45 minutes" were big in UK politics, I don't know if they were relevant in the UK)
I think its more likely that foreign policy is decided on and analysis and intelligence gathering are carried out to justify policy - this is the weakness of all intelligence operations in all societies.
There also obvious issues with being too specific about intelligence sources - even in confidential documents.
"a single allegation is properly sourced." This isn't a report for external review. This is an internal communication among people who are in the loop.
I sincerely hope foreign usa foreign policy is based on more solidely grounded analysis.