Just so you know, the Rooskies are being “obstinate” too. link
I suppose China is next in joining them in their “irrelevancy”.
This has got to be one of the dumbest things I have read all day. You really believe that the president of France would take a position simply to give the U.S. a hard time? You really buy the classic stereotype that the French hate us all?
I think you should stop getting your political news from the funny papers.
** Nanu ** sorry it took so long to get back to you. No I don’t need a cite that we went to war * just * to liberate the Iraqi people. You said Bush doesn’t care at all for the Iraqi people, and I don’t think that’s true. I think there are many reasons for this war, #1 being to get rid of Hussein.
You also said that if Iraq was a Democracy, we’d still be attacking. I’m sorry, but I don’t beleive that either.
Of course GeeDubya “cares” about the Iraqi people. I do not think, nor do I imply, that he is a soulless monster engaged in a Bismarck-Kissinger style excercise in realpolitik. He is simply wrong.
There is no question we will win this war, there never was. There is hardly any question that the Iraqi people will be better off. The regime we will install will undoubtedly be more humane than the Saddamites (though the lesson of South Korea does give one pause). The short term issues are largely favorable to the American position.
The long term results of all this are another matter altogether. GeeDubya has taken an enormous gamble, he has anted up our collective ass and is drawing to an inside straight. As much as I think him a twit with delusions of Leadership, I have to hope he wins.
The French view was that Saddam could be contained and whittled down, and the necessary result could be obtained without a wild gamble. They are right.
Has everyone already forgotten how GeeDubya thrust his jaw out and swore up and down he would demand a vote, gonna see everybody’s cards? That he didn’t care how the prospect of defeat loomed? Seems that was total bull-pucky. When it became clear that we couldn’t even bully Mexico into compliance, a nation that has been our bitch since its very formation, he cut and run.
How to cover this blatant hypocrisy? Well, blame the French, of course, for taking such a unilateral position. After months of public declaration that we would ignore the UN if we so choose, we then have the gall to accuse the French of thwarting the UN. This does for bullshit what Stonehenge does for rocks!
Then this tawdy “freedom fries” episode is concocted to divert public attention from our terrifying lack of international support. It’s a darn good thing our military is so powerful and professional, because our diplomacy is ham-fisted and mondo retardo.
My understanding is that actually, France stated it would use its veto in order to help the “undecided” countries which were reluctant to vote against the US. The idea being “we promise we’ll vote against the resolution, so you won’t be held responsible for the rejection of the US proposal”.
The US wanted its resolution to be supported by 9 countries, or at least by the majority of the members of the security council in order to gain some legitimacy. It could have stated afterward : “the SC support us, it’s just because of a technical issue (the french and possibly russian veto, the fact that 9 countries out of 15 must vote the resolution, not merely the majority) that we didn’t get the UN approval. It’s all the french fault”.
France, of course, wanted the majority of the SC to reject the resolution and by announcing it would veto it, guaranteed the “undecided” wouldn’t be left alone facing the US wrath (or worst : voting against the resolution and having it nevertheless accepted by the SC while France and Russia would abstain).
Of course, the US nevertheless stated “it’s all the french fault”…though it’s somewhat true, since without the french “veto warning” and active lobbying, the US could have managed to get a majority at the cost of some arm twistings.
By the way, concerning the “arm twisting” part, I remember having read an article about the reasons why the african countries were annoyed about this vote. I don’t remember the details, but for instance in one of these countries the issue was the following :
-On one hand, the country needed loans, but the World Bank and the IMF disliked its policies and were reluctant to grant new ones. Given the important influence of the US in these two organizations, the US could suddenly realize that actually this country has reliable economical policies and they could expect to be granted loans if they voted “yes” to the war in Irak
-On the other hand, the country receives loans from the EU, thanks for France lobbying in their favour. If they voted “yes”, France could suddenly notice too that there was issues with the economical policies of this country and stop supporting it in the EU. Also, this country has a border disagreement with a neighbor over an island which happens to be situated in an oil-rich area, and has a military and defense agreement with France. Once again, France could suddenly thinks that it doesn’t really want to be involved, diplomatically, or perhaps someday militarily, in this country if it voted “yes” to the war against Irak.
Of course, the opinion of this country concerning the issue at hand (the war in Irak) was apparently the last of its concerns.
As for the reasons why France rejected the US stance, I already wrote a long post on this topic some time ago, and I’m not going to write down all this stuff once again each time (once a day or so) there’s a thread where people ask “why are these evil greedy french opposing us?”. So, here’s the link to the thread where I posted this answer.