Thursday, March 19, 2015

The Voice of Reason Is Speaking French

Sacré bleu—the voice of reason is speaking French.

While the Obama administrations and its flunkies wring their hands in chagrin at Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in Tuesday’s Israeli elections, the French government—that’s the French Socialist government—must have been relieved.

The French Socialists find Barack Obama to be hopelessly naïve in the matter of the Iranian nuclear threat. They are counting on Congressional Republicans—you know, the ones who incurred the wrath of the great Obama by inviting the Israeli prime minister to address Congress—to stop Obama before he allows the Iranians to get the bomb, thereby provoking an arms race throughout the Middle East.

One suspects that the French government was silently cheering the open letter that Senator Tom Cotton and 46 other Republicans sent to the ayatollahs. Desperate times require desperate measures.

You will recall that the government of Socialist president Francois Hollande had no problem calling Islamist terrorism by its name. Our own president has twisted himself into knots to avoid associating Islam with terrorism… thus leading the world to believe that he is a coward.


French leaders think the U.S. president is dangerously naïve on Iran's ambitions, and that his notion of making Iran an "objective ally" in the war against ISIS, or even a partner, together with Putin's Russia, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, is both far-fetched and "amateurish."

When Claude Angéli says that both France's Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, and its President, François Hollande, have told friends that they rely on "the support of the US Congress" to prevent Obama from giving in to Iran's nuclear ambitions, it is the kind of quote you can take to the bank.

French diplomats worry that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, every other local Middle East power will want them. Among their worst nightmares is a situation in which Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia join the Dr. Strangelove club.

Moutet adds the views of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius:

Laurent Fabius -- once François Mitterrand's youngest Prime Minister; today's François Hollande's seasoned Foreign Minister -- is "fed up with Barack Obama's nuclear laxity" regarding Iran, a Quai senior diplomat told Le Canard Enchaîné's usually well-informed Claude Angéli, who can be relied on to give the unvarnished French view on matters foreign. "Just as in 2013, France will oppose any agreement too favorable to Iran if this turns out to be necessary. Fabius made this very clear to John Kerry when they met on Saturday March 7th."

This, Angéli points out, is far from the "soothing communiqué" issued at the end of the Kerry-Fabius meeting in which both men supposedly "shared" the same view of the Iran negotiations. The communiqué itself may have come as a surprise to a number of French MPs and Senators from their respective Foreign Affairs Committees. Fabius himself, in a meeting last week, made extremely clear his deep distrust ("contempt, really," one MP says) of both John Kerry and Barack Obama. Another of the group quotes Fabius as saying: "The United States was really ready to sign just about anything with the Iranians," before explaining that he himself had sent out, mid-February, a number of French 'counter-proposals' to the State Department and White House, in order to prevent an agreement too imbalanced in favor of Iran.

And that’s not all.

So when Claude Angéli says that both Fabius and President François Hollande have told friends that they rely on "the support of the US Congress" to prevent Obama from giving in to Iran's nuclear ambitions, it's the kind of quote you can take to the bank. French leaders think the U.S. president is dangerously "naïve" on Iran's ambitions, and that his notion of making Iran an "objective ally" in the war against ISIS, or even a partner, together with Putin's Russia, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, is both far-fetched and amateurish.

The French are still smarting from the last-minute reprieve Obama granted Syria, as the French air force was about to bomb the Assad regime's military positions back in 2013, because the U.S. President had been convinced by Russia that they had succeeded in making Syrian President Bashar al-Assad give up on the use of his chemical weapons. "Our Rafale fighters were about to scramble," a French air force officer is quoted as saying; "Hollande was furious."

The French might not like Israel. The French Socialists might not be drawn to American Republicans. But, Hollande and Fabius are experienced diplomats. They have not just arrived on the world stage. And they understand, better than many Americans, that Barack Obama is a bumbler, hopelessly out of his depth.

People like Obama do not care about the results; they do not care about the outcome; they care about the appearance.


6 comments:

  1. I'm interested in this quote "French diplomats may not like Israel, but they do not believe that the Israelis would use a nuclear device except in a truly Armageddon situation for Israel."

    What is a truly Armageddon situation?

    Perhaps like American ending our 60+ years of support for Israel after it abandons a two-state solution?

    Let's see, we're giving $3.1 billion dollars in mititary aid right now. That's alot, but small compared to their GDP.
    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

    To be fair future President Paul is against all foreign aid. Perhaps Netanyahu will save us the effort and declare Israel no longer needs military aid from the U.S.

    Myself, I'd prod and use the aid as leverage for Israel to declare its nuclear arsenal and its policies for what defines an "Armageddon situation", and when Israel declines, you'll know its time for Junior to grow up and carry its destiny without daddy's big sticks.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/08/07/rand-paul-ending-foriegn-aid-for-israel-was-good-for-it/
    “While this budget proposal does eliminate foreign aid to Israel, it is not meant to hurt, negate, or single out one of America’s most important allies. This proposal eliminates all foreign aid to all countries. Israel’s ability to conduct foreign policy, regain economic dominance, and support itself without the heavy hand of U.S. interests and policies, will only strengthen the Israeli community.”

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  2. Just to correct a mistruth brought to us by the media: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/415456/cotton-letter-was-not-sent-anywhere-especially-not-iran-deroy-murdock.
    When even the French depend on our own Congress more than our president one should know we have a problem. I would posit that the French are not alone in hoping the US Congress stands up and does the job they were elected to do. They are after all a co-equal branch of government.
    A reading of Article 1, note that the founders put such emphasis on the importance of the legislative branch that it came first, with an emphasis on Sections 7 through 10 would be instructive. I won't go through them because I believe people need to read the Constitution in order to understand the damage Obama is doing to this country. That and a reading of the Federalist Papers. There were some founders who were derisively called anti-federalist when in fact they were not. They wanted a Bill of Rights. Just an aside here, there were a couple of definitions of deist that were in vogue during the Revolutionary period.
    Might want to give some real thought to Obama's negative liberties concept as well.
    Also it would serve one well not to trust the credibility of the NYTimes.

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  3. Thanks for clearing that up Dennis. I thought "open letter" was clear enough, but we wouldn't want to confuse anyone.

    I wonder if anyone else gets confused?

    On a quick search, it seems "send an open letter" is a well used phrase. I guess we need to update our dictionaries.

    http://www.bpnews.net/44306/sbc-presidents-send-open-letter-to-obama In an open letter, Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd, along with the support and signatures of 16 former SBC presidents, called on President Obama to "take the necessary actions now" against ISIS terrorists.

    http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/marriage-experts-send-open-letter-to-pope-synod-members Marriage experts and marriage advocates from all over the world have signed an open letter addressed to Pope Francis and the members of the upcoming Synod on the Family.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/billionaire-carl-icahn-tweets-he-will-send-interesting-letter-apple-n221616 Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn tweeted on Wednesday that he would send an "interesting" open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday.

    Do we need more cases to decide on the misuse of the english language?

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  5. The Iranian leadership have made and acted upon existential threats to Israel. I wonder what the other nuclear powers in the region think about their belligerent statesmanship.

    As for the Palestinians, it's unfortunate that their leadership sabotaged the two-state solution: Israel and Jordan, and they have learned nothing since their wars of aggression against Jews, Christians, and competing Arab regimes.

    As for the "open letter", will Democrats also be tarred for their "vacation" in the Middle East to oppose Bush's foreign policy?

    Anyway, throw another baby on the barby, and replace those unwanted clumps of cells with legal and illegal aliens (e.g. "Dreamers"), perhaps Palestinians. I'm sure the Abortionist in Chief, head of the pro-choice Party, would not veto that bit of legislation. In the meantime, he can continue to conduct announced regime changes to favor his authoritarian and terrorist replacements.

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  6. French leaders think the U.S. president is dangerously naïve on Iran's ambitions, and that his notion of making Iran an "objective ally" in the war against ISIS, or even a partner, together with Putin's Russia, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, is both far-fetched and "amateurish."

    Unless one thinks that this is what he wants, for Iran to have an atomic bomb; in that case, all is going according to plan. And there is reason to think that way of "the smartest man in the room".

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