The French government is facing pressure from the U.S. over the sale of two warships to the Russian navyreports Fox News,
amid reports that Paris plans to push ahead with the controversial deal.No Pasarán has been on this subject for the past four years. Indeed, with rare exceptions, I do not think that any American newspaper or blog had until now written anything of consequence about what amounts to as a massive transfer of sensitive military technology by a NATO ally to the Kremlin on Obama's watch — France having decided to sell Russia its ultramodern helicopter transportation ship (to the horror of, among others, Georgia).
Despite broader efforts by the U.S. and Europe to isolate Moscow over the intervention and unrest in Ukraine, French President Francois Hollande said he plans to go through with a $1.6 billion deal to build warships for Russia, NPR reported.
We linked story after story about the Mistral — many of them written by the most conservative pundit in the entire New York Times organization (far more so than David Brooks), the International Herald Tribune's Paris-based John Vinocur. It would have been important for Americans (all Americans, not just conservatives) to understand, pre-Syria and pre-Crimea, to what degree the idealistic Obama White House had already then been deficient (or appeasing) in its relations with the Russian bear.
The money quote comes in the French defense minister's January 2011 excuse:
In Lisbon, I heard Barack Obama tell Dmitry Medvedev: "You're not just a partner but a friend." You can not blame France for delivering boats to a friend.There you have it: that says all about Obama's idealistic foreign policy in a nutshell, doesn't it?!
