Written by: Beck

Visiting French President Jacques Chirac said Friday that although war is always the "worst solution" he would support military intervention for security or human rights reasons providing it was authorized by the United Nations.

"I support the right to intervene for reasons of security or human rights, but only within the framework of international law, which is expressed today by the United Nations," Chirac told students of the Oxford University.

And then it was Chirac who single-handedly decided it was time for US-style unilateral military intervention a week ago. Again, it was a genuine expression of anger and no doubt fully justifiable, but it left the troops even more exposed.

"Hardly anyone here in France understands what our policies in Ivory Coast are supposed to be," Le Figaro newspaper argued last week. "Do we want to re-occupy to impose democracy? Do we just want to consolidate the ceasefire line? Or is it merely a question of 'defending French interests'? Nobody knows."

Families of the nine soldiers who died "ensuring security in a country that is our friend" are entitled to answers to these questions, though they are unlikely to get them. Because of the president's foreign policy domaine reserve', such matters are rarely debated in parliament. Instead the French have to live with Chirac's occasional gnomic utterances--and his soaring panegyrics when things go fatally wrong.