TODAY'S OXYMORON -- GUILELESS FRENCHMAN:

Chirac's Casual No (International Herald Tribune, 3/12/2003)

"I know the Americans too well to imagine they could use such methods," Chirac said, brushing off a French journalist's question about whether there would be a price to pay for France's stance....

Chirac's effort at turning a Western institutional confrontation of proportions unknown since de Gaulle's decision to pull France out of NATO in the 1960s into a disagreement among friends went as far as insisting that after Saddam's defeat "France, very obviously, will have its place" as an invited participant in Iraq's reconstruction....

"But they've already won!" [Chirac] said. "I told that to President Bush not very long ago. It's highly probable if the Americans and the British hadn't deployed these large forces, Iraq would not have produced this more active cooperation that the inspectors demanded and are now getting. So, in reality, you can say that in so far as their strategy for disarming Iraq goes, the Americans have already reached their objective. They've won."

I wonder if he keeps a straight face as he says these things.

Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, the former Danish foreign minister, ... likened Chirac to King Lear, saying that the loss of its European primacy left France, "in the face of diminishing influence, alone with its impotent rage."

A nice thought, Uffe, thank you. Still, France is not yet neutered, and her past sins may come to haunt us. The coming war will tell how great France's aid has been to Iraq in the ten years since France superseded the Soviet Union as Saddam's chief patron. Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 12, 2003 10:55 AM