Jacques Chirac - Middle East policy hawk
"On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb. Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous." Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb. Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran -- whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" -- as using it would mean an instant counterattack. "Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed."
However, he has since attempted to retract it thus:
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,'" he said. Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target. "It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said. "We have the means -- several countries have the means to destroy a bomb. Regarding his comments that Israel could be a target of an Iranian weapon and that Israel would retaliate, Chirac said: "I don't think I spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I did so but I don't think so. I have no recollection of that."
The interview was with the Washington Post, Herald Tribune and the Nouvelle Observateur, taped and on the record. Might he have been hitting the bordeaux a bit hard, is he losing his marbles, or more likely is he reacting to France losing its status as a 'Satan', as I noted recently?
This entry was posted
on Thursday, February 01, 2007 at 9:42 am.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Pretty scary to learn that the man with his finger on the bouton rouge of the Force de Frappe has such a pathetic grasp of nuclear warfare.
No medium-tech nation possessing just a couple of nucs would dream of sticking one on a missile: truck or ship every time.
And if they did have enough nucs to hazard one on a missile then far from being confident about taking it out within 200 metres of launch, M.Chirac should note the very poor success-rate in shooting down Israel-bound Scuds.
Even bladdered, the man would be expected to say something more coherent than that... non?
I think the Bordeaux diagnosis is correct, Croydonian. This has all the hallmarks of a person with a very bad hangover who just wants to go and lie down.
Not the smartest observation Frere Jacques has ever made, is it?
» Post a Comment