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Europe
France warns against Iran action, says military intervention would be ridiculous
2003-10-18
The US pursuit of forcible regime change is not a viable or safe policy in the dangerous world that exists after September 11, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin who is alleged to be a man, said in an interview with the Guardian.
So far we’re 2 for 2.
In a wide-ranging critique of US policy in the Middle East and beyond, Mr De Villepin said that any military action against Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons would be "absolutely ridiculous".
Which is why, Sparky, we haven’t done that so far.
He also said that, in spite of Thursday’s UN security council resolution giving the US-British force in Iraq a mandate, "the conditions for real progress on the reconstruction of Iraq are not complied with today... Reconstruction has to have a partner, you have to have real sovereignty in Iraq if you want to have the Iraqi people working with you."
We seem to be managing so far.
Mr De Villepin declined to commit France to providing reconstruction assistance at next week’s donors’ conference in Madrid, in spite of urgings to do so from Washington.
Because they’re broke. Their deficit violates the EU guidelines for the 3rd year in a row. They don’t have it.
While emphasising France’s desire to patch up relations with the US and to work with it on a range of international issues, the foreign minister also questioned Israel’s US-backed security policies. He said Europe should play a vital role in advancing the peace process, not least because of Europe’s close trade and aid links with Paleostinian terrorists and boom-boys both sides. "I think that Israeli policy during the past months and years shows clearly that if you are going to imagine that only through security you are going to find solutions, you are mistaken...
The problem isn’t that force has been tried and found to have failed. It’s that force hasn’t been tried. The Israelis need to reach out and touch the Paleo leaders.
"We think that using force, on the contrary, is going to... give new reasons to some people [like al-Qaida] to oppose you us." Mr De Villepin sketched out a French vision of a radically different approach to foreign policy in which differences of culture, society and religion should be weighed alongside questions of security. "Regime change can not be a policy on its own in today’s world," he said. "You have to be respectful of sovereignty.
"Unless you’re dealing with a former colony."
"Of course, there are very difficult situations when human rights are concerned... we have known that in Kosovo and Rwanda and Bosnia and Ivory Coast and Senegal and .... So in rare situations, we have to address these kinds of problems by military means. But you have to have the support of the international community... If there is one country that imagines it can solve this matter alone, we are going to see more vengeance, more difficulties, more problems, and the world is going to be more unstable."
He makes this up as he goes along, doesn’t he?
After his visit, it was announced that Mr De Villepin and Mr Straw and the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, are to visit Tehran on Monday to try to defuse the nuclear arms row. To the annoyance of the Bush administration, Britain, France and Germany have offered to supply civilian nuclear technology to Iran in return for its abandoning any ambition to seek nuclear weapons capability.
We’re annoyed because we learned from North Korea that you can’t trust thugs who promise to stop their nuclear programs in exchange for ’civilian nuclear technology’. And youse guys weren’t paying attention.
Posted by:Steve White

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