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Chirac sez the Arab world doesn’t need ’missionaries’ of democracy
France and Turkey have rejected President George W Bush’s idea of NATO playing a role in Iraq, with Paris cautioning that the Arab world does not need "missionaries of democracy". "I do not think that it is NATO’s job to intervene in Iraq. Moreover, I do not have the feeling that it would be either timely or necessarily well understood," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters in a video conference from Sea Island, the private resort where the Group of 8 -- Western industrial countries, Japan and Russia -- are meeting.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a guest at the summit, expressed himself similarly. Asked whether NATO, of which Turkey is a member, should have a role in Iraq, Erdogan said: "The concept we have been emphasising is the role of the United Nations." Chirac warned that US efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East run the risk of backfiring. "We must stand ready to help. But we must also take care not to provoke. For that would be to risk feeding extremism and falling into the fatal trap of the ’clash of civilizations’ -- precisely what we wish to avoid."

Chirac said that instead of missionaries of democracy, what the Arab world needs is addressing conflicts such as the long-running struggle between Israelis and Palestinians.
France is doomed.
Heard on the radio that Chirac did agree that NATO could train the Iraqi military and cops. I like that idea: better to have them trained to the standards of a European army than to the standards of the U.S. army. You never know. We might have to clobber them again someday.

Posted by: TS(vice girl) 2004-06-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=35194