The French embarrassment

Judith Apter Klinghoffer:

When you see a headline such as France sees no reason to blush over Lebanon force, you know the opposite is true. With every passing day, France's humiliation gets more pronounced. France may be able to get away with demonstrating to the world that it can repeatedly and safely run rings around the gullible American diplomats. Anti-Americans everywhere will cheer her along. The French promise a military force and Condi falls for it. How pathetic is that?!

But France cannot get away with letting down her traditional Lebanese dependents who counted on the French to reign in the Hezbollah destroyers of their country as well as advocates of UN directed multilateral action. The former may be too weak to rebel but the latter are letting the French have it. Yesterday, the NYT leading editorial was called Waiting to Chirac. Today, The Financial Times followed suit with a lead editorial calling on France to put her troops where her mouth is.

The fact that the culprit of French backtracking seems to the ability of the French military to say no to the wishes of the civilian authority merely adds salt to the open wound. Western diplomats anxious to cover their own backside, point out that if the rules of engagement are too weak, it is the fault of French diplomats wish to please the Arab League.

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She goes on to talk about that other European military embarrassment, Italy stepping up to bail out the French, before they start their own retreat. The chances of having a meaningful force other than the Israelis in southern Lebanon is remote.