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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (8464)	9/18/2003 12:45:08 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 793761

Then yet another great failure of Bush diplomacy is be [sic] out politicked by the French. How so? It seems rather obvious that a substantial French motivation is to get the oil development contracts Saddam promisd Elf back in their pockets. They are not acting in their self-interest by annoying the one power that can put the contracts in place. In your zeal to blame anything that Bush does, you also conveniently ignore (or purposefully evade) the remainder of Friedman's argument, namely, that the French policies will promote terrorism within France's borders. How does this amount to being "out politicked", as you put it? Seems to me that the French are in the process of "out smarting" themselves. C2@justlikeyou.com

To: JohnM who wrote (8464)	9/18/2003 12:59:36 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793761

It very often happens in politics that demagoguery and pandering offers short-term benefits, and the French are collecting them, in this case by pandering to European fears of American power. Of course, the other Europeans are under no illusions as to French motives, so they are unlikely to give France any long-term benefits, and the anger of the US - can I compare losing Tom Friedman to Johnson's losing Walter Cronkite in 1968? - will be of longer duration. That is why I call France's policy une folie de grandeur. This would be true even if France herself were not in danger from the Islamists. That she is, only makes Chirac's stance doubly foolish.