In the Seattle Times, columnist William Pfaff says that if John Kerry is elected he’ll have a small window of opportunity in which to emulate France’s retreat from Algeria: ‘De Gaulle option’ may be our best Iraq exit strategy. (Hat tip: jdwill.)

When de Gaulle returned to power in France in 1958, at a moment of extreme crisis in France’s war to defeat Algerian insurgents and to keep Algeria French, he recognized that the war was futile, even if the insurrection itself might temporarily be defeated.

He cut France’s losses. Defying military mutiny, despite significant resistance from French public opinion, and facing assassination attempts and a terrorist campaign directed against him and his government, de Gaulle negotiated Algerian independence. It was an act of cold-blooded courage and realism.

It did not leave France revealed as “a pitiful, helpless giant” (as Nixon said would be the case if the United States left Vietnam). It strengthened France, freeing it to deal with real issues of political and economic reform.

If Kerry is elected president, he will have the de Gaulle option. He will have a window lasting a few months during which he could reverse U.S. policy and expect, provisionally, to carry public opinion with him.

UPDATE at 9/26/04 10:55:48 am:

William Pfaff is uniquely qualified to express the nuanced French perspective; he lives there.

Paris-based historian and columnist William Pfaff is a regular contributor to the International Herald Tribune and a former New Yorker magazine writer.