Tue 19 Sep 2006
President Bush is currently in the middle of delivering his speech to the UN General Assembly. But just to make sure that any threats Bush makes ring hollow, Jacques Chirac made sure it was known that France will not support sanctions against Iran over its failure to stop its uranium enrichment program. Said Jacques:
“I don’t believe in a solution without dialogue,” he said. He added pointedly that he had never noticed that sanctions had been effective.
You see - it will be much more effective “negotiations” if any economic threat is removed. Maybe he didn’t want the Iranians to feel like they were at a disadvantage during “dialogue” and “diplomacy” phases of this dance. Or maybe he just came around to the Russian and Chinese position, which is that there is more money to be made if they do not comply.
Wasn’t it just last month that Chirac said “Today I call on the Iranian authorities to choose the path of cooperation and confidence by carefully examining this offer and resuming their commitment to suspend activities related to the production of fissile materials.” And “There is room for dialogue and negotiation. We call on Iran’s spirit of responsibility to restore cooperation and confidence, failing which the Security Council will have no choice but to take up the issue.” Apparently “taking up the issue”, just doesn’t include taking any actions on it.
Or maybe France doesn’t have the stomach to take this up now. After all, they had to cough up 200 more troops to go as peacekeepers in Lebanon, and still have a lot of regulations to write to make sure those troops don’t unintentionally disarm any Hezbollah militia.
At least Mr. Chirac did get one thing right - rarely do economic sanctions levied by the UN singularly solve any problems. In fact, in Iraq they contributed to the problem when the pitiful corrupt UN Oil-for-Food program enriched Saddam and cronies.
But it certainly was a nice way to embolden Iran today.
There is always room for dialogue… right up until it’s too late!
UPDATE: Bryan @ Hot Air provides the definitve statement: “Only France could manage to lose a war in which it did not fight.”
