French President Jacques Chirac shrugs off Iranian nukes in response to a question at a press conference held yesterday.

The last time I did a post on French President Jacques Chirac readers walked away with the impression that I hate the French people and treat them unfairly when I make fun of some of their national peculiarities.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Like P.J. O’Rourke, I have a soft spot in my heart for the French:

The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don’t know.
O’Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 199

Perhaps if the French drank more whiskey and tried harder not to undermine the United States on Iran, we would quit calling them “cheese eating surrender monkeys” and simply refer to them as weasels:

President Jacques Chirac said this week that if Iran had one or two nuclear weapons, it would not pose a big danger, and that if Iran were to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran.

On Tuesday, Mr. Chirac summoned the same journalists back to Élysée Palace to retract many of his remarks.

Mr. Chirac said repeatedly during the second interview that he had spoken casually and quickly the day before because he believed he had been talking about Iran off the record.

“I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record,” he said.

I shouldn’t have insulted weasels so.

To say that the French are being unhelpful with regards to Iran wouldn’t be true. They have been of enormous help to the Iranians. The only possible way to convince the Iranian government to cease enriching uranium or, at the very least, allow for intrusive, on site inspections of the enrichment process is for the Big Three in Europe - Great Britain, France, and Germany - to stand shoulder to shoulder and speak with one voice along with the United States on the question of Iranian nukes.

The United States worked extremely hard last summer and early fall trying to reach a consensus with our European partners on Iran. We worked even harder to bring the Russians and Chinese on board for even the limited, watered down sanctions that were eventually passed by the Security Council. All the major players in the game seemed to agree on at least one thing; no nuclear weapons for Iran under any circumstances at any time.

This united stance actually seemed to be having a limited effect in Iran as prices for basics went through the roof because speculators were worried that even harsher sanctions would be in the offing thanks to the unity of the major powers. Ahmadinejad lost some prestige and perhaps even some support as a result of the sanctions regime being passed by a united Europe and America.

And now Mr. Chirac has detonated a bomb right in the middle of this coalition. It doesn’t matter that he tried to take it back. What matters is that the Iranians know that when push comes to shove at the United Nations, the chances are good that France will abandon consensus and once again pursue its own agenda. Not out of any over riding national interest but because they feel it their duty to oppose the Americans while pretending that France still has influence in the world beyond their former colonies and certain segments of what we used to call the “Non-Aligned Nations.” By giving a wink and a nod to Tehran on their nuclear program, Chirac has almost single handedly guaranteed that someone - either the Israelis or us - will have to go in and take out the Iranian nuke program before it can build a bomb.

Granted the chances of the Iranians giving in to the Security Council demands were remote even before Chirac’s casually stupid remarks. But Chirac’s comments guarantee that those chances now sink to near zero.

Chirac will be gone in a couple of months. It will be interesting to see if his successor continues the game of “now you see our support and now you don’t” that Chirac has played for years on a variety of issues. Just about anything would be an improvement over this insufferably arrogant man.