Monday, May 24, 2004

shudder

Dissident Frogman quotes a French legislator in the EU as advocating nuclear armament of Arab nations. And claiming that the present instability of the Mideast is a result of the thwarting of France's efforts in the '70s to do just that.

There is, however, another serious imbalance for which we are in part responsible, namely the imbalance of forces. I have no hesitation in saying that we must consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants. That is the policy my country [i.e., France] pursued in the 1970s when it gave Iraq a nuclear force. We have now destroyed it. So we will carry on with our policy of imbalance and what is happening today is merely the annoying but inevitable result of our collective blindness and cowardice.