***Dave Does the Blog

Has Kim Jong Il offered Saddam Hussein asylum?

Maybe. Maybe not.

If he has, maybe he could give the Iraqi leader a personal tour of one of his nuclear weapons facilities.

And if he could just let the US know when that was going to happen, so that we didn’t happen to have any cruise missiles in the area …

(via Drezner)

I’m surprised this didn’t get more play when it happened a few weeks ago. Or maybe it did, and I just missed it while in the UK.

Jacques Chirac, feeling his oats as the leader of the Grand Anti-Alliance, took the opportunity to pass on some words of wisdom to the various Eastern European countries who had been angling for EU membership and who signed a letter supporting the US position on Iraq.

What terms of encouragement did Mr. Chirac have for these potential EU brethren? How did he demonstrate the French commitment to multi-lateralism, and the free interchange of ideas? How did he sell the EU as someplace where all are welcome at the table?

Chirac said: “These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position.”
“It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet.”
“I felt they acted frivolously because entry into the European Union implies a minimum of understanding for the others,” Chirac said.
Chirac called the letters “infantile” and “dangerous,” adding: “They missed a great opportunity to shut up.”

That’s tellin’ ’em, Jacques. All EU members are equal, after all, but certainly some of them are more equal than others.

Chirac did allow that countries already part of the EU ought to be allowed more slack if they supported the US. “When you are in the family … you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door.”

Of course, if that’s the sort of attitude that Chirac’s been broadcasting up until now, no wonder some of these countries aren’t falling in line, simplisme types that they are.

Chirac, to be sure, doesn’t speak for the EU. Or does he?

European Commission President Romano Prodi said he was saddened rather than angry with the candidates because their pro-Americanism was a signal they had failed to understand that the EU is more than a mere economic union.
“I would be lying it I said I was happy,” he told reporters. “I have been very, very sad, but I am also patient by nature, so I hope they will understand that sharing the future means sharing the future.”

Nice to know how it is that the Euros can recognize American black-and-white thinking — they have plenty of examples of their own to compare it to.

Jean Chretien, Canada’s prime minister, in Mexico City on 27 February:

We have to think of consequences if there is a war outside of the U.N. We live in a very different world today. We have only one supernation in the world, one superpower, and the United Nations are needed more than ever.

So the purpose of the UN is simply to restrain the “one supernation … one superpower”?

And this should encourage the US to participate in its activities because …

The story is in the context of an informal Canadian UN proposal that would set a “strict time limit” on further inspections, as a “compromise” between France (et al.) and the US (et al.).

Of course, we’ve had strict time limits. Iraq has ignored them, or played them, or weaseled through them. So long as the UN inspection teams are willing to say, “Hey, Iraq voluntarily (kicking and screaming) offered up yet another warhead it had ‘lost,'” and as long as France, et al., are willing to use that as a demonstration of how inspections are “working,” setting a “time limit” is meaningless.

Especially when the inspections regime, and, indeed, any pressure on Iraq to comply with the UN, has come about only because of US (and British) troop movement and threats. And we’re the ones paying the bills, folks, for keeping those troops there. We’re the ones threatening to shed our own blood to this end. Not France. Certainly not Canada (which has posted two — two — soldiers in Kuwait, as forward observers).

Canada’s suggestions sound good, but without some strong definitions about what “substantial Iraqi compliance” means, it’s just a restatement of the status quo. And without some assurance that France, et al., will not simply weasel around what to do next (assuming that they wouldn’t go for something that doesn’t require yet another UNSC resolution), it’s pointless.

A little glimpse at life amongst the “human shields” in Iraq — manipulation, paranoia, squabbling, and, for many, an early return back home.

For all those folks who think the US has abandoned its hunt for al-Qa’eda members, too distracted by Iraq — or who claim that the war on Iraq is to distract from lack of progress in pursuing al-Qa’eda members:

Well, maybe not.

U.S. officials have described Mohammed as a key al-Qaida lieutenant and the organizer of the terror mission that sent hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing more than 3,000 people.
It was not known whether Mohammed had been taken to Afghanistan, a military base in Cuba where other suspected al-Qaida are held, a U.S. ship or flown to the United States or a third country.
CIA officers and Pakistani authorities carried out the operation that led to Mohammed’s capture, according to American officials, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

(via InstaPundit)