Nicolas Sarkozy, Terrorist-Loving Traitor

Syrian President Bashar Assad is in Paris to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. And, as the BBC is reporting, the two are getting along rather well. Sarkozy is set to host a meeting between Assad and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, a meeting that could lead to renewed diplomatic ties between Syria and Lebanon. Meanwhile, Sarkozy has announced that he will visit Syria later this year.

All in all, “[t]he Paris visit is a big boost for [Assad], helping Syria to break out of its diplomatic isolation.” All thanks to Nicolas Sarkozy.

That is, George W. Bush’s friend Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bush and Sarkozy are good buddies, you see, not like Bush and Chirac, and Sarkozy is about as pro-American (and pro-Bush) a French president as one is likely to find in a country that is famous for being anti-American, or at least generally hostile to America in a friendly love-hate sort of way.

But now that Sarkozy has shown himself to be such a good friend to Assad? Will that not drive a wedge into his friendship with Bush? After all, Bush is an all-or-nothing, with-us-or-against-us, good-and-evil sort of guy. And, while Syria may not be Iraq (and Assad not Saddam), it is certainly not “one of us” in Bush’s worldview.

What’s more, Obama, Pelosi, and other Democrats have been ridiculed by Bush’s right-wing cohorts for wanting to open up relations even with America’s less-friendly adversaries around the world — you know, because talking to one’s adversaries can be far more productive — far more conducive to peace and progress — than threatening them with Bush- and Cheney-style saber-rattling. For Bush and those like him, even talking is appeasement, and hence weakness — which means that Sarkozy, Bush’s buddy, must be an appeaser, too.

The rest of us know that talking can not only be productive but also an expression of strength. Bush would rather bomb now and talk never, but talking first and seeking peaceful, diplomatic solutions to the world’s problems is a rather more noble way of doing thing in a world that is increasingly, to use the fashionable word, global. Sarkozy understands that, I’ll give him that, as do some of Bush’s other European friends, like Germany’s Angela Merkel, as do Obama, the Democrats, and Republicans like Chuck Hagel.

While Bush has isolated and alienated America from the rest of the world, much of the rest of the world, including France, is taking the lead in working to secure peace and progress.

It is important, I think, that America assume a position of leadership once again. But it won’t happen under Bush, or what remains of the Bush presidency, and it won’t happen under McCain, the McCain who has become Bush-plus.

I have written before that America needs Obama more than ever. So does the rest of the world.

(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)