Do you really believe that the totality of their actions was based on a principaled stand? Perhaps a part, but much of it was power politics....and for that, some price must be paid.
On the French, slacker, I have no serious idea as to what their intentions, motives, or otherwise were. The only thing I've seen here, on TV, or in newspapers is speculation, some informed and helpful, some just vindictive.
My own uneducated guess is that their actions, like the actions of all great powers, were profoundly mixed. I don't think, for instance, that one can characterize the US actions as "principled." Rather as a mix of great power politics (the neocon statements about keeping all other powers secondary), cleaning up old messes (their view that the first Gulf War failed), revenge (for the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate GHWB), concern for the stability of the world economy (oil), anti-Clinton sentiment (their view of the need for a dramatic demonstration that the new US policy is to use weapons rather than have them as diplomatic tools), their view that fear is the most prominent ingredient in foreign policy calculations (again, the need to demonstrate a willingness to use the weapons), etc. I could go on. But to call the US actions "principled" and the French actions "unprincipled" is, in my view, to fall into the binary logic trap that fascinates the Bush folk. |
