Sarkozy enlists in Bush's Middle East crusade:

Allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons could destabilize the world and lead to war, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the United Nations on Tuesday.

In his maiden speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Sarkozy said: "There will be no peace in the world if the international community falters in the face of nuclear arms proliferation."

Iran was entitled to nuclear power for civilian purposes, he said, "but if we allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, we would incur an unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world".

In a broader warning against the dangers of appeasement, the new French leader said: "Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war."

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the West suspects the Islamic Republic of enriching uranium to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Underlining French support for tougher sanctions against Tehran, sought by the United States but opposed by Russia and China, Sarkozy said: "We can only resolve this crisis by combining firmness with dialogue."

In other words, the US and France believe in the urgency of destabilizing the world now, and killing lots of Iranians in the process, to avoid the prospect that an Iranian nuclear weapons capability might do so in the future. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

Perhaps, though, it is easier to explain in relation to the French when one recalls that Sarkozy, as the French Interior Minister in 2005, described rioting Muslim youth "rabble" or "scum" after civil unrest erupted in response to the accidental electrocution of two young boys running from the police.

After all, Sarkozy specifically said that he wanted to clean out les banlieues with a Karcher, a high pressure cleaner manufactured in Germany. The predominately Muslim people of North African descent who reside in these suburbs believed, with good reason, that Sarkozy was referring to them.

In the past, one gets the impression that the French, like former President Jacques Chirac, advised caution in regard to issues involving US force in the Middle East, for fear that French support for US neoconservatives could result in a violent explosion within France. Sakozy, however, has no fear of it. Indeed, if you have a conspiratorial turn of mind, you have good reason to suspect that Sarkozy is actively instigating a US attack upon Iran to provoke even more intense unrest in les banlieues in order to justify a brutal domestic assault upon his own North African Muslim minority.

Labels: France, Muslims, Sarkozy, War with Iran