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To Bomb, or Not to Bomb: That Is the Iran Question

(Weekly Standard/American Enterprise Institute) Reuel Marc Gerecht - A French diplomat explained to me recently in Paris why he - and many others in the French foreign ministry - thought the U.S. would, in the end, bomb Iran's nuclear-weapons facilities. Owing to Chinese and Russian obstreperousness, the UN would probably fail to agree on any sanctions. The Europeans - at least the French, Germans, and British if not the Italians - would do a bit better, primarily because the French have developed a strong distaste for the clerics. The mullahs did, after all, once bomb Paris and kill a slew of prominent Iranian expatriates on French soil; and the French don't particularly care for religious Third Worlders joining the nuclear club. France might even lead the sanctions charge against Tehran - an astonishing historical moment for the Fifth Republic, which has usually aligned itself with Muslim Middle Eastern regimes or cultivated a profitable neutrality, especially when the U.S. was involved on the opposite side.
2006-04-18 00:00:00
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