In analysis of current events in the Middle East, the French newspaper Le Monde opines thusly: "The Iraqis are scared. They ask themselves every day which American blunder is going to again aggravate the situation...The great error of the Americans is to not have understood that Iraqi society could straighten out the postwar a thousand times better than they."
Dexter yields to no man in his respect for the acuity of Parisian political analysis but he feels that an exchange from the 1942 movie Casablanca may put things in context. A Gestapo officer speaking to a French policeman dismisses the significance of American night-club owner Rick Blaine:
Major Strasser: You give him credit for too much cleverness. My
impression was that he's just another blundering American.
Captain Renault: We musn't underestimate American blundering. I was
with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1919.
One might say in reply to Le Monde that the great error of Frenchmen is not to have understood that their time in the spotlight expired in 1940. A world-weary sophistication amid a cloud of cigarette smoke is no substitute for principle and courage. Just as Jean-Paul Sartre sat out the Occupation scribbling about his existential angst, France in the last 60 years has abdicated responsibility for guarding the civilization that they once did so much to build. One only wishes that they would refrain from back-stabbing those who are still on duty.
Posted by Dexter at April 9, 2004 09:23 AM