There's A Little Biden In Us Gaul

The story is short, and so hilarious I am simply going to paste most of it. In a simultaneous interview with three newspapers yesterday, Jacques Chirac said of Iran's nuclear program:

"I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb. Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous."
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb. Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran -- whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" -- as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
"Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed."

You know, I find dialogue is more effective when it includes listening. How can France have been talking with Iran for so long and Chirac not realize that a retaliatory nuking of Tehran isn't precisely a deterrent for Abombnjihad? Even so, apparently the erasure of Israel and Tehran from the map would be no skin off Mssr's Gallic nose. And he has the nerve to denounce Bush as a trigger-happy cowboy, cavalier about human life? Isn't he at least a wee bit concerned about the effect all the fallout would have on global warming? I mean, one little bomb can really ruin your whole Kyoto accord.

Anyway, today Chirac called the papers to try to retract. As WaPo notes,

Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Explanation?

"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.

Right. It's never good to go on record as cynical, cavalier and duplicitous.

In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed. "I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,'" he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said. "We have the means -- several countries have the means to destroy a bomb."
Regarding his comments that Israel could be a target of an Iranian weapon and that Israel would retaliate, Chirac said: "I don't think I spoke about Israel yesterday. Maybe I did so but I don't think so. I have no recollection of that."

I bet in France Joe Biden is considered a genius.