Germany and France Staying Mum

[Miss Authoritiva]

News Analysis: Germany and France staying mum

John Vinocur/International Herald Tribune

Saturday, April 10, 2004



PARIS France and Germany have been strikingly discreet about America's new troubles in Iraq, reflecting what appears to be their judgment that the country's instability threatens any positive development in the Middle East over the long term.

"No one has any interest in an American fiasco," the former French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, said Friday. That did not take in the schadenfreude of some French and German commentary, but it had the sound of an operative formula to describe a situation in which Washington's misery did not objectively equal Paris' or Berlin's gain.

In attempting to draw closer to the United States over the past months - the Germans actively, with American backing; the French in a less public mode - the two countries set courses for improving trans-Atlantic relations that would be destroyed by Iraq-related ironies or we-told-you-so's from ranking officials.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/514175.html

[bemildred]

1. An example that the US Gov't would be well served to follow.

Entirely too much fourth grade rhetoric coming from Washington.