IT WREAKS HAVOC ON THE DECLINISTS' STORYLINE...:

France steers a course away from Russia (Katrin Bennhold and Judy Dempsey, October 3, 2007, NY Times)

A day before embarking on his first trip to Russia on Tuesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy is to hold talks with the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, two countries that are as openly suspicious of their large Eastern neighbor as they are pro-American, diplomats and officials said Tuesday.

The meetings will almost certainly raise eyebrows in Moscow at a time when French foreign policy appears to be shifting from the views of Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, shared with successive Russian leaders, toward a warming of relations with East European countries.

French officials said the separate meetings in Paris with the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and the Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, were not deliberately scheduled ahead of the Moscow visit. But they said that Russia and a number of topics that have strained relations between Moscow and the European Union - from energy security to U.S. plans to deploy an antiballistic system in Poland and the Czech Republic - are likely to feature in the talks.

"You cannot talk to these countries without talking about Russia," said a diplomat, who declined to be identified because the president's office had not announced the visits.

......but Mr. Sarkozy realizes you need to be friends with America's friends and it doesn't matter a bit if you alienate her enemies.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 3, 2007 2:02 PM