Leave it to French President Jacques Chirac to send mixed signals to Iran about its nuclear ambitions. Chirac said in an interview Monday that he didn’t think that Iran having one or two nuclear weapons would pose a big danger. But Tuesday he tried to retract what he had said, claiming that it was spoken casually and quickly because he thought it was off the record, the New York Times reported. His administration also released a heavily edited transcript of the first interview that deleted his nuke comments and inserted a line that Chirac never said during the interview, about how he didn’t see a scenario that could justify Iran getting an atomic bomb. What’s up, Jacques?
Posted by Philliip Brownlee
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19 Comments
Someone needs to lead Jacques Chirac aside and clue him in that France is about as much a world power as Fiji is!
Stick with the white flags and forget the nukes, Jaq!
I think the man had a stroke in 2005.If France really was a world power, the French would remove this man!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01france.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
…We should listen to the French more…After all they are experts on Cheese eating and surrender…:-)…
If only our president could get the kind of critical scruinty that our media gives to people that we DON’T ELECT AND ARE IN NO WAY SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT US.
Chirac’s “off the record” comment is definitely in conflict with the official position of the French Government, who along with the Germans and ??? were negotiating at one time with the Iranians over nuclear power plants and not developing nuclear weapons.
I think the idea was to build light-water reactors that are not capable of producing weapons grade material.
Thanks, Ben; CRS is definitely becoming an issue….
Why are we worried about what the frogs are saying? Our president is twice as screwed up as that guy.
Dee Dee Dee,
Indeed. But what’s scary is the normalization of this line of thinking. If the President of France is saying it, it’s lowered the threshold for rendering a pre-emptive attack on Iran acceptable.
And that, my friends, will send the entire Middle East up in precisely the anti-Western conflagration that is Osama Bin Laden’s wet dream.
That’s why Osama wanted Bush elected instead of Kerry; because he knew Bush would go nuts and unite Islam against the West. If the United States–or Israel, for that matter–attacks Iran, Osama gets his wish.
Say no to Osama: impeach George Bush.
NO NUKE FOR ANYONE. We (USA) and France and all nuclear powers should reduce nuclear capability, all the way to ZERO one day. Jaq should get his head examined!
We should try to be friends with the Muslim countries. Bush’s aggression is only creating more reasons for young Muslims around the world to become our terrorists. Be truthtful to us George – the terrorists are not against our freedom. They are mad at us because we have not been fair to them; we support oppressive regimes like the Saudi’s monarch because we are addicted to their oil, we have not been fair in Israel-Palestinian conflicts, etc. We at home can begin with driving more fuel efficient cars so our troops don’t have to die for oil and our money will not end up in the hands of terrorists.
Condoleeza Rice had a memo telling her that we were going to be attacked by planes into buildings a few weeks before it happened.She still has her job and does not appear to lose any sleep over her flaw. I think we should show the world that we don’t suffer idiots on our own soil.Rice should be a patty, not a US leader.
Yeah, right Jim
I’d like to see your copy of THAT memo. All the Bush admin was told by the Clinton admin was that OBL was determined to strike in the US.
Look now at all the uproar that has been caused by some muslim clerics being kicked off the plane and now wanting to sue the airline.
Anybody want to imagine the amount of lawsuits coming out PRIOR to 9-11 by security taking a hard look at muslim men then just because we had been told that Al Quida was determined to strike in U.S. possibly using aircraft.Now I consider myself pretty good when it comes to common sense. I myself back then would have thought that okay, there might be a chance of some hijackings but not in my wildest dreams would I have thought that a plane would have been used by suicidal men crashing the plane into a building.
You make it sound like the Bush admin was told that Al Quida was going to hijack some planes and crash them into the WTC and the Pentagon and Congress and this would happen sometime in the early part of September 2001.
Oh brother how selective Dems memory can be when it comes to their god, Billary, who had SEVEN (7) years to deal with OBL and Al Quida.
Since Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – there is no reason for anyone to support them in obtaining nuclear weapons now.
This is why negotiating and treaties are not a top priority anymore. No one seems to care if promises are put in writing – they forget about them in the next minute.
So why should we ever negotiate? What happens when one or more members of a treaty breach it?
Nothing.
The people who support Iran in getting nukes are actually undermining the value of negotiating and signing treaties.
UN Treatys = Toilet Paper
Latest poll shows Bush is less popular in the mid-east than the Prime Minister of Israel. Hell no the mid-east doesn’t neek nukes!
I lifted this from another site:1. Iranians are the most pro-U.S. people in the Middle East outside of Israel.
True. A poll commissioned by the Iranian parliament in 2002 showed 75 percent of Iranians favored renewing ties with the United States.
2. The president of Iran sets foreign policy and decides whether to wage war or peace.
False. The most powerful political post is that of faqih, an expert in religious law. Ali Khamenei holds the position.
3. There are 25 national political parties in Iran, representing a wide range of opinion. Men and women age 16 and older can vote in elections.
True. People vote on a variety of politicians and political issues, including electing the body of representatives that chooses the faqih, or supreme ruler of the country.
4. More Americans than Iranians attend religious services regularly.
True. Only about 17 percent of Iranians attend Friday mosque services. More than half of Americans attend religious services on a regular basis.
5. Iran has not invaded another country in 300 years.
True. The last aggressive war was when the Safavids reclaimed Afghanistan, and drove the Ottomans from Georgia and Armenia and the Russians from the Iranian coast.
How surprising is this information? It certainly is different from what many Americans are being led to believe. As part of a 12-day fact-finding and friendship delegation to Iran this past May, a group of 21 Americans and one Brit decided to see for ourselves. Our trip was organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest and largest U.S. peace group, founded in 1914. We ranged in age from late 20s to late 70s and included war veterans, clergy, educators, nonprofit agency directors, a publisher and a banker. Members of our group came from all three Abrahamic faiths.
Our mission was to meet with our professional and religious counterparts in both organized meetings and chance encounters on the “Persian street.”
I expected the Iranian people to be gracious, gentle, good-natured and hospitable, which they were without exception. What I didn’t expect was:
The integration of men and women in public space.
From administering a major university library to jogging, women – often wearing colorful headscarves and fashionable slacks, tunics, high heels and jewelry – were very visible.
* The subtlety of religious practices.
Iran is the only Middle Eastern country I’ve visited where I didn’t hear the call to prayer.
* Poetry as a major part of the national identity.
A form of both political dissent and appreciation of beauty and the human spirit, poetry performances draw crowds in the hundreds in Iran. Major streets are named for poets. Everyday people know reams of classical poetry by heart. The hottest Friday night dating scene is the garden tomb of Hafez, where couples meet to recite love poems.
The Persian empire, which preceded modern Iran, gave the world the fork and the long-haul postal system, and designed the Taj Mahal. The words that grace the entrance to the United Nations, “all human beings are members of one body,” are from the great Persian poet Sa’adi.
As a chemical weapons survivor and veteran of the Iraq-Iran war told us, “Governments around the world have led people in the direction of war instead of peace. They are using people as tools to achieve absolute power. The leadership of our two nations don’t want us to get close to each other. As individuals and members of organizations, our duty is to bring people together.”
Char Simons is a steering committee member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Olympia chapter and a member of the Community for Interfaith Celebration. She is an adjunct faculty member in Middle East studies and writing at The Evergreen State College.
Perspective is coordinated by Interfaith Works in cooperation with The Olympian. The views expressed are those of the author.
The general negative comments about France and the French only illustrate how easily people are influenced by talk show hosts, comedians and think tankers paid to plant negativity in our minds. Think of what they have done to your perceptions of Muslims. Think who is doing these things and for what purpose.France is a great country, and the French are a great people, who have been around at least ten times as long as Americans. And their wine is better, too, as is their food. The live longer, eat better and are not nearly as fat as we. People who diss the French should first look at themselves naked in the mirror.
Dorking- Their reputation is earned, not by their food, but by their actions.They helped us during the Revolutionary war and the War of 1812- We saved and rebuilt their asses in WWI & WWII.
Since then, they spit on us and exist- awaiting the economic implosion their Socialist policies will bring.
And, Most Americans were for the war, before they were against the war! So what does that say about the foresight of the French as compared to the Americans?