HOW STUPID IS JACQUES CHIRAC? That’s the question.
UPDATE: More evidence for the “pretty dumb” side — he seems to be losing it:
At Mr Annan’s hawkish stance, Mr Chirac stood up and, with Gallic passion, began a defence of the French position.
Flinging his arms up and down, he declared that war was a terrible thing and that thousands of innocent people would lose their lives in a second Gulf war. “It is a question of life and death,” he said.
It was suggested that, at this point, the most dramatic moment of the evening occurred. Silvio Berlusconi, the diminutive Italian premier, eyeballed Mr Chirac and insisted: “I’m just as concerned about life and death as you are.”
He asked the French president to consider what happened to innocent people in Bali and in New York’s twin towers.
Then, the normally mild-mannered Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, interjected and pointed out that the only person getting away with defying the will of the international community was Saddam.
He added that the weapons inspectors could not go on indefinitely.
By this time, Mr Chirac was positively steaming at the pro-American forces reigned against him. But there was more.
Jan Peter Balkenende, the new Dutch prime minister, underscored the hawkish line, saying the issue was Iraq’s full compliance and that it was now just a matter of weeks, not months, before the matter had to be resolved. “We have to reinforce the pressure on Iraq,” he said.
Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar also called for international cohesion, pointing out that the UN had only got so far with the Iraqi dictator by threatening force.
Then, Tony Blair said his piece, deriding the 12 years of deceit by Saddam and stressing he had to come into compliance “100%”.
Looking at his colleagues one by one, he told them bluntly: “There is no intelligence agency of any government around this table that does not know that the government of Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.”
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Jacob Golbitz writes:
By scolding the leadership of these countries for daring not to toe the E.U. line and indicating that this display of independence may jeopardize their pending E.U. membership, the President of France is merely calling attention to the fact that when looking at E.U./U.S. conflict over Iraq, his eastern neighbors recognize the stronger horse.
It’s beginning to seem like an emerging theme of 2003 is a race to irrelevance between the United Nations and the European Union. Right now it looks a little close to call.
Indeed.