New tasks
Idiot
Jaques Chirac is starting to remind me uncomfortably of Jimmy Carter. He seems to have a warm space in his heart for authoritarian regimes. Of course, he does his appeasing with cool, French arrogance rather than the down-south, disingenuous awe-shucks air of the slyly self-righteous Carter. The result is the same, though: dictators coddled and abetted by men who would happily remove all diplomatic pressure.
French President Jacques Chirac has been pushing the EU to drop its refusal to consider letting Iran enrich uranium, despite U.S. and European fears Iran could use enrichment technology for weapons, EU diplomats say.
Sharing U.S. suspicions that Iran may have atom bomb ambitions, the European Union's three biggest powers—France, Britain and Germany—have demanded Iran give up its nuclear fuel programme in exchange for economic and political benefits.
The reasons, of course, are different. Chirac turns a blind eye for the sake of French business interests or for the simple joy of opposing the United States (believing that the world needs a contrarian counterbalance to all American political positions). Carter did it for--well, actually, it's hard to tell precisely why Carter cozies up to the leaders of such bulwarks of liberty as North Korea and Cuba. I'm fairly sure that his explanation would probably center around being a good Christian, although I would hazard to guess that it's at least as focused on the naive belief that a handshake and a good ol' boy smile are good enough to disarm (literally and metaphorically) even the worst dictator.
Because, really, don't the Mullahs in Iran just want the same things that we want?
Hint: it is naive to believe that every culture is focused on the same goals either personally or politically, or even that they maintain, ''underneath it all," the same set of values. That simply ain't true.
The Robert Mugabes of the world--who hold the boot to the neck of their citizens; who think nothing of threatening citizens with loss of life, sustenance, or livelihood; who believe that their power must be maintained even as their countries spiral toward self-destruction--do not have the same system of values that your typical Westerner holds as natural and obvious. Loosening diplomatic pressure without concessions simply loosens the internal pressures that might otherwise have forced political change.
Chirac and Carter, now that's an intellectual pairing that makes an unfortunate kind of sense.