"I believe the French president, Jacques Chirac, knows something in his heart: in the run-up to the Iraq war, George Bush and Tony Blair stretched the truth about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction — but they were not alone. Mr. Chirac also stretched the truth about his willingness to join a U.N.-led coalition against Iraq if Saddam was given more time and still didn't comply with U.N. weapons inspections. I don't believe Mr. Chirac ever intended to go to war against Saddam, under any circumstances. So history will record that all three of these leaders were probably stretching the truth — but with one big difference: George Bush and Tony Blair were stretching the truth in order to risk their own political careers to get rid of a really terrible dictator. And Jacques Chirac was stretching the truth to advance his own political career by protecting a really terrible dictator."
Say Mr. Friedman how do you know that Chirac was lying when he claimed that a bit more patience on the part of the Bush Administration might have won his support? Oh, you believe it. Hmmm. Well I believe that Friedman, you want us in Iraq because of huge profits that American companies stand to rack up, some of which you might get. Now I don't have any proof of this belief, but I don't need any, do I?
And check out this chilling paragraph.
"We have entered a moment of truth in Iraq. With Saddam now gone, there are no more excuses for the political drift there. We are now going to get the answer to the big question I had before the war: Is Iraq the way it is because Saddam was the way he was? Or was Saddam the way he was because Iraq is the way it is — ungovernable except by an iron fist?
Yep. Either the violence stops in Iraq or you guys will get the dictator you apparently deserve. Friedman's made some good points in the past, but today he feels like a man grabbing at straws ("Everybody still hates the French, right?").
Article here.
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