Le Nez du Chameau (The Camel’s Nose)

The ubiquitous nose of an Arabian Camel

Back in the Summer of 1997, at the height of yet another crisis surrounding the seemingly never-ending saga of UN weapons inspection teams led by yours truly trying to gain access to sites considered by Iraq to be sensitive to their national security, I had surrounded the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service (the Mukhabarat), and was insisting that I be granted access to specific locations inside the headquarters deemed relevant to the Security Council’s mandate governing the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. My chief interlocutor was General Amer al-Sa’adi, the former head of Iraq’s military industry and, at the time, a special advisor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

I briefed General Sa’adi on my desire to gain access to two specific locations, one in the M-4 (Operations) Directorate, and the other in the M-5 (Counterintelligence) Directorate. General Sa’adi informed me that these were the most sensitive aspects of the Mukhabarat’s work and granting me access would be impossible. I was persistent, however, and at the time I had the backing of the Security Council, which had made it clear in a recent resolution that a denial of access to my team would constitute a material breach of Iraq’s obligations to disarm, paving the way for the US to attack Iraq. This was no empty threat—in the Persian Gulf, the US had deployed an aircraft carrier and missile-carrying ships and submarines, backed up by US Air Force fighter-bombers operating out of bases in neighboring countries.

After denying my team access for several hours, General Sa’adi finally relented, and I took my team to the offices we had singled out as being of interest, where we found documents which furthered our understanding of how Iraq had conducted covert procurement of proscribed items in the early years of our disarmament work in Iraq. When the inspection was finished, I approached General Sa’adi and rebuked him. “We could have been done with this hours ago, and without any drama,” I said.

 

Earlier in the day, while my team was parked at the various entrances to the Mukhabarat compound, preventing any exit of personnel, vehicles, and/or documents, the Iraqi security forces responsible for our protection intercepted an enraged Iraqi citizen who, armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle, was planning to carry out a drive-by attack on me and my team. He was stopped less than 50 yards from where my command team and I were standing.

“Mr. Scott,” General Sa’adi replied, “we do not like you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“You yourself saw that the information we found was relevant to our mandate,” I replied. “We are simply doing our job.”

“Yes,” Sa’adi noted. “It was relevant. But only as history. We no longer have the weapons you are looking for. We have declared everything. And now you are engaged in an academic exercise that puts our national security at risk.”

I took umbrage at his comments. “We had asked you about the relationship between the Mukhabarat and weapons procurement in the past. You denied there had been a connection. We had information that said there was. As such, we had a duty to assume that your denials were de facto evidence that these procurement activities were continuing.”

I pointed back at the main headquarters building, where we had conducted the searches. “And the documents we discovered proved that we were correct—there was a connection between the Mukhabarat and covert weapons procurement.”

“Yes,” General Sa’adi replied, “you were correct. But so were we. The documents also proved that this procurement activity was stopped years ago. Just like we said it had been.”

“So why not let my team in and close the door on this chapter?  Why delay and harass us?”

General Sa’adi turned to me and smiled. “There is a saying among the Bedouin tribes. ‘If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.’ This,” Sa’adi said, gesturing at the Mukhabarat compound, “is our tent. We cannot allow you to put your nose under the tent flap. If we do, you won’t stop until you’re inside. And once inside, you will never leave.”

“But I did get inside,” I said.

“Yes, but we made it as inconvenient for you as possible. And now you are leaving. And if you come back, we will make it even more inconvenient.”

He paused, staring at me. “We do not want the UNSCOM camel in the Iraqi tent. Because with UNSCOM comes America. And with America comes death and destruction.”

General Amer al-Sa’adi

I have often reflected on General Sa’adi’s words that day, and their prescience—UNSCOM did, eventually, get our nose under the Iraqi tent.

And with us came America.

And death followed.

The expression “don’t let the camel’s nose under the tent” became part of my personal lexicon, to be uttered anytime I thought an unwelcome presence was trying to winnow its way into my universe.

This past week, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that there we no “red lines” when it came to the prospects of French troops being deployed to Ukraine. Initial reports indicated that the French military was preparing to accelerate the reinforcement of a battalion-sized task force (some 700 men) currently deployed in Romania to a brigade (around 2,000 men). France had been preparing to take this action sometime in 2025, but the precipitous collapse of the Ukrainian army on the frontlines of its ongoing war with Russia compelled Macron to accelerate the operation in anticipation of dispatching this brigade into Ukraine.

In the grand scheme of things, a 2,000-strong French military contingent will not, in and of itself, alter the strategic balance of power on the ground in Ukraine. At best, the French battlegroup would be able to relieve a similarly sized Ukrainian unit serving in a security capacity so that the Ukrainians could be redeployed to the front, where it could be expected to be ground up in a matter of days.

The French have tried to muddy the waters further by stating that a French contingent, if deployed to Ukraine, would do so in the status of “neutral” troops.

The question is to what extent Russia would allow such a deployment of foreign forces onto the soil of Ukraine, even if these troops were not directly engaged in combat.

French troops deployed to Romania

The answer?

Russia would not allow such a deployment. First, the idea of France assuming a “neutral” posture in a conflict in which they have already labeled the Russians as their “adversary” is laughable. Adversaries, by definition, cannot be neutral.

But the main reason Russia cannot allow even a limited French military deployment in Ukraine is this: “If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.”

These 2,000 troops are just the nose of a larger NATO camel. France has already stated that it is prepared to deploy up to 20,000 troops to Ukraine, the vanguard of a coalition of forces drawn from NATO nations that could total up to 60,000 strong.

And once 60,000 troops are deployed to Ukraine, then NATO will inevitably use Article 4 of the NATO Charter to define a situation of grave national security importance to the NATO collective and convert those 60,000 troops into a NATO force backed by the full power of NATO.

The camel will be fully ensconced inside the Ukrainian tent.

And for Russia to remove the camel, it would need to go to war against NATO.

Not a proxy war, such as is currently being waged using Ukraine as a tool of the collective West, but rather a full-scale conflict which will inevitably lead to the use of nuclear weapons, at first on European soil, and then later as part of a general nuclear conflict between Russia and the collective West.

In short, the end of the world as we know it.

The extent to which the United States is involved in the plans of France and its European partners is not fully known. The Biden administration has consistently articulated against any escalation which could result in American “boots on the ground” out of fear of allowing the situation to escalate out of control, resulting in a third world war that would rapidly devolve into nuclear war.

Russia, however, doesn’t differentiate between French boots and American boots—they are all NATO boots.

If Russia lets the French nose of the camel into the Ukrainian tent, then the NATO neck will come next, accompanied by the American body.

And death will follow.

Soviet nuclear test, October 1961