Drawing The French Battle Lines

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Over the past year, Sarkozy has played diplomatic hardball while getting ready for a brawl, a strategy that buttresses the vision for France he is now presenting. France has taken the lead among the Europeans, for instance, in tough negotiations to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt programs that could enable it to build nuclear weapons. In cultivating Olmert and Assad, the French also are playing a more active, public role in Middle East peacemaking than ever before, partly because Washington's initiatives have been getting nowhere.

But it hasn't taken long for the French military establishment to push back. Generals writing anonymously in the conservative daily Le Figaro charged Sarkozy with "a true downgrading of our country's military." They deemed his plan a strategy for communications more than defense. Even before the report came out, the British were skeptical, especially about French plans for a European defense college and a European operational command in Brussels. "This will end in tears," predicted retired Brig. Geoffrey Van Orden, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament. But then Sarkozy declared that the college and headquarters needed further study. "The French want everything!" says Valasek. "But on the most controversial points [with the British], they went soft." Indeed, Sarkozy's pragmatic view toward change had emerged again. After all, there's no need to wreck the party on Bastille Day even before it starts. France's revolution in defense and foreign policy has only just begun.

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Sarkozy hopefully will back his words with action. Chirac was anti-US, was slimy and corrupt, morally. NATO needs France, and for the most part they are responding. Wat is needed from the French in A-stan is a regiment of Paratroopers, perhaps the 2nd Para of the FFL. This is an elite group, and they would be a real asset for NATO. Le Clerc tanks are only 54 tons, and can be airlifted into theatre. Or the wheeled AMX which would be right at home in A-stan. Men and armor. I hope you come through Sarkozy.