French PM: World Must Prepare For Possibility of War With Iran

Old news by now, but important:

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday his country must prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its nuclear programme, but he did not believe any such action was imminent.

Seeking to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, Kouchner also told RTL radio and LCI television that the world's major powers should use further sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting atom bombs, and said France had asked French firms not to bid for tenders in the Islamic Republic.
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"We must prepare for the worst," Kouchner said in an interview, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."

Asked about the preparations, he said it was normal to prepare for various eventualities.

"We are preparing ourselves by trying to put together plans that are the chiefs of staff's prerogative (but) that is not about to happen tomorrow," he added.

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Kouchner's comments follow a similarly hawkish statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said last month in his first major foreign policy speech since taking office that a diplomatic push by the world's powers was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

The worst is not war, but a nuclear-armed Iran.

The left is dishonest as usual on this issue. They will often claim that a nuclear-armed Iran is "intolerable," but then propose tolerating this situation.

It's not that the right is just knee-jerkedly in favor of "bombing brown people," as the left has it. It's that when we say a nuclear-armed Iran is "intolerable" we actually mean the word as it is actually defined, e.g., not to be tolerated. The left mistakes its political PR and lies for "nuance" as usual.

The left clearly believes a nuke-armed Tehran is quite tolerable. They should say so and make their case to the American people on this point, rather than speaking out of both sides of their mouths. Democracy -- consent of the governed -- relies upon honest statements of intentions and values, not lies. And if the left wishes its policy as regards Iran to prevail, it must first actually announce to the American people what that policy is, for the very first time. And that policy is permitting Iran to have nukes and hoping for the best.

This may be a justifiable policy. It may even be wise policy. But the left must make its case, rather than simply lying that they won't permit Iran to acquire the bomb while ruling out any action likely to forestall that nightmare.

But, as usual, the left simply refuses to gain true consent and approval for its favored policies from the public.

Perhaps had they really argued all the stuff about Iraq they now claim they knew all along, they could actually have participated honestly in the Iraq War debate and possibly prevailed. They seem to think their secret hostility to that war makes them noble and right; I think it makes them craven. You don't get credit for being "right" if you're too cowardly to make your true position known. And here, yes, I'm talking primarily about the Democratic Party itself, which was tepidly in favor of Iraq publically. We all knew they were against it, but they tried to pretend they were in favor of it. How this qualifies as a profile in courage or demonstration of foreign-policy wisdom is beyond me.

posted by Ace at 11:57 AM

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