Cleaning up after Chirac

According to Amir Taheri, France's recently elected President Nicolas Sarkozy has set about correcting the foreign policy mistakes of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

Chief among these was Chirac's desperate efforts to prevent the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussain's regime of terror.
Chirac failed to save his friend's regime but managed to do serious damage to relations with the US, Great Britain and more than 40 other nations that joined the coalition of the willing to liberate Iraq in 2003.

Sarkozy's moves to correct the mistake started even before his election when he met President George W. Bush at the White House in 2006 and described Chirac's policy as "arrogant".

The surprise visit paid to Iraq by France's new Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner this week is another move by Sarkozy to shed Chirac's disastrous legacy.

Among the benefits of Sarkozy's reversal of Chirac's foreign policy is that it undermines one of the arguments that was and is still used against the liberation of Iraq.

The French change of attitude in Iraq destroys one of the key arguments of all those in the US who opposed the liberation of Iraq. The argument is that by toppling Saddam, the US alienated some of its key allies, notably France.

John Kerry, the Democrat presidential nominee in 2004, used the argument as a key campaign theme, echoing the views of other leading figures of the American left such as Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and Noam Chomsky, not to mention the financier George Soros.

This ought to make for an entertaining presidential campaign season in the coming year, what with Democratic aspirants wringing their hands in despair over America's supposed loss of standing in the world.  In reality the world is moving to the right in spite of the ongoing media attack against anything conservative, and in spite of the Daily Kos, MoveOn.org, George Soros funding for everything leftist. 

America's good standing in the world is assured as long as America stands by her promise to the Iraqis.  The Democrats' failure to force America to renege on that promise and to abandon them will be the true source of their despair.