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| Iraq | ||
| France expresses renewed commitment to Iraq | ||
| 2008-06-01 | ||
BAGHDAD - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Iraq on Saturday on an unannounced visit to underline the "renewed political committment of France" to the war-ravaged nation, diplomats said. Kouchner arrived in Nasiriyah in southern Iraq at the start of a two-day trip during which he was due to meet Vice-president Adel Abdel Mahdi, said a diplomatic source who asked not to be named. Mahdi, a Shiite Francophone who lived in exile in France, is one of the leaders of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), a key member of the governing coalition.
He is in Iraq at the invitation of President Jalal Talabani, the diplomatic source said. "This visit reflects the renewed political commitment of France with regard to Iraq and the Iraqi people," the foreign ministry said in a statement issued in Paris. During his stay, Kouchner will have talks with President Talabani, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari. The French minister was also expected to travel to Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region 350 kilometres (215 miles) north of Baghdad, on Sunday to open a French representative office. France has an embassy in Baghdad, but had announced it would also open two more diplomatic offices in Iraq -- one in Arbil and the other in the oil-rich port of Basra, 550 kilometres (340 miles) south of the capital. The visit will be "an opportunity to express the availability of France to work to promote national reconciliation in Iraq," the French foreign ministry said.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #9 truth be told, the Rafele, in an export version, might be just the thing for the Iraqis. It is, by all accounts, a solid multirole aircraft, and it gives the veneer of not being a US "colony" to make that deal (unlike an F-16/F-18 buy). Plus they'd outclass every AF in the region excepting the Israelis, and maybe the Saudis. And it ties the French *firmly* into sustaining an open and democratic Iraqi government, and at least a training presence in Iraq. Good political angles all the way around. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-06-01 15:57 |
| #8 Besoker. You deserve to be French. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-06-01 15:38 |
| #7 Sniff, sniff, sniff...I smell a new Iraqi Air Force fighter jet contract. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-06-01 13:49 |
| #6 Kouchner was one of the most vociferous French critics of our 2003 decision to remove Saddam Nope. He coauthored a book about Sadam's crimes and why he was better out of office. You are missing him with teh former Foreing Minister: Dominique Galouzeau aka de Villepin. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-06-01 13:17 |
| #5 Thanks, I found it worth posting, I've discovered it through a french translation. Nope, I didn't catch that particular phrase, but the smugness couldn't escape me, though. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-06-01 12:44 |
| #4 A5089, to hijack this thread, I just watched the BBC documentary on Enoch Powell. Powell was certainly prescient and his ideas would probably be even more popular now that people have seen that what he predicted has come to pass. What most struck me, however, was the absolute arrogance of the old-time Labourites. They were truly bien-pensant bastards. Did you catch the line about "we didn't think we should be discussing these things in front of the children--you know, the voters." And there was the real kicker, from Roy Jenkins: "We didn't know that in inviting these people in we would be taking a chance on losing our secular state." These sons of whores had no compunction whatsoever about subjecting their country to a social experiment that the vast majority of their voters would have vehemently rejected and whose bitter consequences they could not begin to imagine. However, since they "knew" that people like Powell were just hateful racists, they had to be opposed no matter what. Leftists have been the bane of the 20th Century; the problems caused by the Right have been small beer by comparison. Thanks for posting that series. It's a very good indicator for the current state of affairs. If such a lefty PC bunch as the Beebsters are even hinting that Powell might have been less than absolutely and completely wrong, you know things have got to be pretty damned bad in Britain. |
| Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 2008-06-01 09:15 |
| #3 To be more precise, he didn't support the war itself, again, this would have been unthinkable in 2003 France, and he took the usual position he was "opposed to war, which is always the solution of last ressort, etc, etc...", but he supported the removal of saddam and the baasist, through an "international community" intervention & pressure. This probably was not realistical, but, again, he was not a rabid Us opponent, and having him as a foreign affairs minister by sarko is one of the few actual relevant changes made from the yacoub ibn shiraq days (on almost all other matters, sarko is an immobilist and a phony reformer), as this is a shift from a gaullist strategy built on third-worldism & anti-americanism to a more (realistical IMHO) US-neutral (or even possibly US friendly, we'll see) stance. So, instead of meeting this with snub and derision, I think this should be acknowledged as a positive step, again given the french context. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-06-01 04:58 |
| #2 Kouchner was one of the most vociferous French critics Nope, nope, nope. Kouchner was actually one of the FEW french pols/public figures favorable to the removal of saddam, though he didn't call openly for an armed intervention, as that would have been simply "too much" in the hysterical 2003 context. He's a socialist, but he's been advocating "pre-emptive wars" to rescue foreign populations from dictatorship since at least the 1999 serbia bombing campaign (humanitarian intrusal), and he's been derided enough by both the pro-"arab-dictators-with-mustachios" wingnuts & the usual suspects from the left (his party included) as an "atlantist" or "atlanto-zionist" (he's a joooooooooo) that calling him "one of the most vociferous french critics (of the OIF) simply is disingenous. The only way I could think why you'd call him that is that he's been critical of how the post-war iraq was handled, but AFAIK, he's been pretty fair about the liberation of iraq, in the french context. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-06-01 04:50 |
| #1 ahh...follow the money. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2008-06-01 01:31 |