The best article I read yesterday was the one of Daniel Davies in Comment is Free in which he argues that the French are right to stay out of the farce that is the current cease-fire in Lebanon. He writes:
Chirac negotiated that ceasefire. If it turns out he was lying when he promised a load of troops, well, then maybe Israel, the US, the UK, Hizbullah and the Lebanese government ought to ask him to lie to them a little more often, because it seems to me that he has fibbed them out of a disastrous conflict that neither side was winning and neither side had a clue how to end. (...) As he did in Iraq, Chirac has played a blinder diplomatically. I don't think anyone ought to have ever believed that he was going to unilaterally cough up the men and money for this forlorn hope of a peacekeeping force. All that France provided was a convenient pretext for Hizbullah and Israel to walk away, in a reasonably dignified fashion, from a fight that neither of them wanted to be in. Having got that, the international community ought to just say, "Thank you, monsieur," and walk away, not start complaining. Asking for the peacekeeping force is just childish, like asking for a kiss from the Easter Bunny when you've already got the chocolate.
Davies may be right, but the problem for France is that the next, and there will be a next time, this diplomatic strategy may not work because it will be less credible and therefore less able to convince the parties to stop the hostilities.
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