Dominique de Villepin Watch
What exactly does this mean? Would France provide troops via a U.N. umbrella (but under overall U.S. command) or not? But Dominique just loves emitting inscrutable signals. We've certainly learned that over the past year.
Le Figaro's article (very similar to the NYT piece) says as follows:
"Dans ces conditions, on voit mal sur quelles bases un compromis pourrait être trouvé entre Français et Américains à l'ONU dans les semaines qui viennent..."
Translation: "Under these conditions, it's hard to see under what basis a compromise could be found between the French and Americans at the U.N. in the weeks to come...."
Guess that bodes poorly for the issue presented in the last graf of this article. Still, the French do have a dog in this fight. It's not in their interests to see the Iraq reconstruction fail--no matter the sophomoric glee that might well trigger in certain circles.
And they need to be seen as responsible players in the U.N. Vetoing a resolution allowing for insertion of U.N. troops, simply because they would be under the command of a U.S. commander (particularly given that the U.S. and U.K. fought the war), might even strike Berlin as a bit gratuitous. Developing.
Posted by Gregory Djerejian at August 29, 2003 03:14 PM