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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (34251)	2/3/2007 2:24:36 PM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 541370

In Debate Over Iran, It's Chirac vs. Chirac By JOSEPH SCHUMAN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE Contradictory views are the staple of multilateral efforts to halt Iran's enrichment of uranium, but it's rare to hear them coming out of the same government and all-but-unheard-of from the same head of state. Until this week in Paris. French President Jacques Chirac granted an interview Monday with the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, an interview embargoed until the magazine's publication date today. On Tuesday, he brought the reporters back to the Elysee to take back much of what he said. Mr. Chirac, who for years has worked with European allies and Washington to demand a halt to a program they suspect is meant for weaponry, said it was dangerous for Iran to flout constraints of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But then: "I would say it's not so dangerous, the fact of having one nuclear bomb, maybe a second a little later," he said, according to a transcript in Nouvel Obs. "If Iran pursues its path and totally masters the electronuclear technology, the danger isn't in the bomb it will have, and which will bring it nothing. Where will it send this bomb? At Israel? It wouldn't get 200 meters in the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed." What's dangerous, he said, is the resulting proliferation. "Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it? And why wouldn't it help Egypt to do so too? That's the danger." But in France, and with many French journalists, some politicians are used to being able to alter the character of comments already spoken. And on Tuesday, he told the same reporters, "I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," the Times reports, adding that Monday's talk had been recognized as a tape-recorded, on-the-record interview. About his comment that Tehran would be razed in retaliation for an attack, he said: "I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran.'" He added that "it is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately. We have the means, several countries have the means to destroy a bomb." It wasn't clear what he meant, since such missile-defense technology is rare and of unproven ability. Mr. Chirac also retracted his references to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, saying it wasn't for him to speak for Riyadh and Cairo. And asked about Israel, replied: "I don't think I spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I did so but I don't think so. I have no recollection of that." The pair of interviews may add a little nuance to the international debate over Iran, but they may be of more concern domestically for the French. As the Times notes, the 74-year-old Mr. Chirac is in the final months of his second term as president, with elections set for next spring. He suffered neurological incident in 2005, and rumors about flaws in his publicly displayed cognitive abilities have popped up since then. During the first interview, "he appeared distracted at times, grasping for names and dates and relying on advisers to fill in the blanks. His hands shook slightly," the Times says. During the second, he was more confident and comfortable with the subjects discussed.