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The impact of the Dec. 3 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) continued to reverberate around the world on Tuesday as the possibility of a U.S.-Iranian detente and the nonexistence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program sank in. Israel is nervous, Syria senses opportunity and Russia is quietly terrified.
However, another case — that of France — is more complex.
Freshman French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attitude toward the United States is night-and-day different from that of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy already has held powwows with U.S. President George W. Bush and shouted the evils of Iran from the rooftops, serving as the nerve center for mobilizing all things European against Tehran. Without Sarkozy’s extreme diligence, it is highly unlikely that European resistance to sanctions against Iran ever would have been broken.
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