Sarkozy and Obama: No Love Lost?

There is definitely no love lost between the French President Nikolas Sarkozy and US President Obama. Lately, the contempt and disdain Sarkozy has held for Obama for long was expressed when Obama made a few statements about a world free from nuclear weapons. Obama made the statement while he was chairing a particular meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's patience and self control seemed to give up when US President Barack Obama reportedly said, "We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth" at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council recently. Touting this as typically childish and unrealistic prattle, Nicolas Sarkozy commented on how can Obama say that, when Obama had the information that the supposedly 'rogue states' like Iran are deferring from this principle.

Sarkozy further said that Iran has a nuclear weapons development site, which was not all given a thought by Obama while speaking, even though he had the relevant information. Sarkozy also stated that Iran has disregarded almost 5 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, since the year 2005 and so has North Korea, since 1993. In Sarkozy's opinion this whole act of engaging in a dialogue with countries like Iran, (which Obama is very much tilted towards) who flout the Security Council resolutions is a sham. What was implied through this was the fact that the Security Council should have imposed extremely severe sanctions of rogue states, rather than 'working together' on the nuclear weapons issue, which has come across as futile.

But during all these years, Iran has not undergone severe Security Council sanctions as Russia and China have used their veto power against it. So, in this context when Obama was asked about his naive statement about a nuclear weapon-free world, he answered, "Iran has been put on notice." Well, seems ironical, when even after 'being put on notice, Iran went ahead and tested two ballistic missiles, having a capacity of carrying a nuclear warhead for around a 1,000 miles. This is what exactly Sarkozy was pointing to, when mentioning about Obama's duplicity or naivity.

Seemingly, there are a lot of geopolitical issues entangled with this and it will only be a military intervention which can curb and prevent the repercussions of Iranian nuclear arsenal. Inspite of Iran being so stubborn and having a cake walk when it comes to nuclear power, Obama is still in favor of negotiations, rather than putting heavy sanctions on Iran and giving it a taste of their own medicine. Stern as Obama was, in his tone, his speech did not reflect it.

Sarkozy's provocation, perhaps was not uncalled for, after what passed in the United Nations Security Council meeting.