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| What's a nuke or two... |
Itsdb |
02/02/07 |
in the hands of a few Jihadists?
Chirac's Iran blunder provides glimpse into nuclear Middle East
by Carole Landry
He may have taken back what he said but Jacques Chirac this week nevertheless became the first western head of state to break a taboo by recognising that Iran may become a nuclear-armed power.
By sketching out a scenario of Iran armed with a nuclear bomb and staring down Israel, the French president gave the world a glimpse of the new balance of power in the Middle East that western governments may be contemplating.
While such musings are commonplace in think tanks and conferences, they have a different resonance coming from the president of France, which has joined the United States and Europe in asserting that Iran will not be allowed to develop a bomb.
"Jacques Chirac said what many experts are saying in the world, even in the United States -- that a country that has the bomb doesn't use it and applies the rationale of deterrence," former foreign minister Hubert Vedrine commented.
Foreign policy expert Pascal Boniface agreed that Chirac "spoke as an expert and not as a head of state" at a time when the United Nations is seeking to put more pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear activities.
"In the official diplomatic discourse, these are things that are just not said," added Boniface of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies in Paris.
In an interview this week to three publications, Chirac minimised the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran, saying that Tehran would have to take into the account the fact that it would be "razed to the ground" if it launched a strike on Israel.
"Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well that's not very dangerous," Chirac said in the interview to the New York Times, the Paris-based International Herald Tribune and the French weekly Nouvel Observateur.
"Where would Iran drop this bomb? On Israel?" he asked. "It would not have gone off 200 metres into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground," Chirac was quoted as saying by the three publications.
The president retracted his comments, admitting that he had erred, and the Elysee issued a formal statement asserting that France's position was unchanged and that it considered a nuclear-armed Iran unacceptable.
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Echoes of Reagan ("the bombing begins in five minutes") from Chirac? Sacre bleu! Of course it's not Chirac's fault he said those things, it's a “shameful campaign” by the American news media “using any excuse to engage in France-bashing.”
Perhaps Mr. Chirac and Mr. Biden should get together and start their own country? |
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