FRENCH BELLICOSITY AND, AN IRAN UPDATE. When French president Nicolas Sarkozy said several weeks ago that air strikes could be the outcome if Iran does not halt its nuclear program, Mahmoud Admadinejad, president of the Islamic Republic, simply called the statement "worthless" and painted Sarkozy as naive in the ways of international diplomacy. Yesterday, French foreign minister Bertrand Kouchner said on television, “We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," the AP reports. What a difference a few weeks makes. Today, Iran's state news agency strikes back with an editorial proclaiming, "Since President Nicolas Sarkozy took office, He has been trying to take an American skin by adopting an even tougher policy than that of the US for dealing with the international developments. ... The occupants of the Ellyse [sic] have become translators of the White House policies in Europe and have adopted a tone that is even harder, even more inflammatory and more illogical than that of Washington." Meanwhile, the Bush administration discredits itself further on the international stage by failing to implement its own sanctions against foreign travel for members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. And in a day rife with Iran headlines, check out Elaine Sciolino and William J. Broad's profile of the "man in the middle," Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA, whose focus is less talk of war and more brokerage of a peaceful compromise. --Dana Goldstein
