EDITORIAL: "Sarko Steps Up," Wall Street Journal, 29 August 2007, p. A14.

Sarko talks tough on Iran (he too is hot to threaten bombing to show how tough he is, never mind what a non-effect it would have on Iran's actual capabilities development), and Merkel is described as Bush-lite. Toss in Gordon Brown and all that "conventional wisdom" about the next president needing to make "various policy amends" is blown off. The world is all turning more bullish on Bush's foreign policy! Okay, just the usual Euro Big 3. They, plus America is all that's required to both run the world plus stand up to the authoritarian Rest. Oh let me count up all the troops, because this strikes me as truly visionary! As Sarkozy himself is quoted from last year, "I've always favored modest effectiveness over sterile grandiloquence." Ah, thus the effectiveness of promising that Tehran's pursuit of nukes can end in only two ways: "Iran with the bomb or the bombing of Iran." India suffers more terror attacks every year than any other country. Pakistan is clearly linked to the majority (I mean, they emanate from its territory as much as 9/11 emanated from Afghanistan), making Pakistan arguably the most terror-exporting nation on the planet. It's also given away nuke technology. And it has the bomb. Why not nuke Pakistan? Hmm. Maybe it's more complex than that, so we shelve the grandiloquence there. And Israel's monopoly on WMD in the Middle East gets us what--exactly--in strategic stability for the region? But, definitely, by all means, let's match Ahmadinejad's chest-beating rhetoric. It goes so well with our modest effectiveness. Bush's accomplishments in effectively dividing the world along old lines is certainly impressive. Too bad yesterday's fault lines don't address tomorrow's challenges. America will need allies who go and do, not stand and talk. And we'll need them in serious numbers.