Oops, je l’ai fait encore

Jacques Chirac has gotten himself into a bit of foreign policy hot water, according to the New York Times' Elaine Sciolino and Katrine Bennhold: President Jacques Chirac said this week that if Iran had one or two nuclear weapons, it would not pose a big danger, and that if Iran were to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran. The remarks, made in an interview on Monday with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine, were vastly different from stated French policy and what Mr. Chirac has often said. On Tuesday, Mr. Chirac summoned the same journalists back to ?lys?e Palace to retract many of his remarks. Mr. Chirac said repeatedly during the second interview that he had spoken casually and quickly the day before because he believed he had been talking about Iran off the record.... In the Monday interview, Mr. Chirac argued that Iran?s possession of a nuclear weapon was less important than the arms race that would ensue. ?It is really very tempting for other countries in the region that have large financial resources to say: ?Well, we too are going to do that; we?re going to help others do it,? ? he said. ?Why wouldn?t Saudi Arabia do it? Why wouldn?t it help Egypt to do so as well? That is the real danger.? Earlier this month, Mr. Chirac had planned to send his foreign minister to Iran to help resolve the crisis in Lebanon. The venture collapsed after Saudi Arabia and Egypt opposed the trip and members of his own government said it would fail. Mr. Chirac, who is 74 and months away from ending his second term as president, suffered a neurological episode in 2005 and is said by French officials to have become much less precise in conversation.... In the first interview, which took place in the late morning, he appeared distracted at times, grasping for names and dates and relying on advisers to fill in the blanks. His hands shook slightly. When he spoke about climate change, he read from prepared talking points printed in large letters and highlighted in yellow and pink. By contrast, in the second interview, which came just after lunch, he appeared both confident and comfortable with the subject matter. (emphasis added) Two thoughts. First, what exactly is "a neurological episode"? Is this like "a minor circulatory problem of the head"? Second, the implication in the Times report is that Chirac made more sense in the second interview than the first. To me that's really disturbing, because in the second interview Chirac actually makes less sense to me. Chirac is essentially correct in stating that Iran would not nuke Israel because it would invite immediate retaliation, and Tehran would be leveled. Assuming that the political status quo remains in Iran and Ahmadinejad doesn't have his finger on the button, this is true. However, for this to be true, the threat of retaliation has to be pretty clear. And this is what Chirac appears to amend in his second interview. Consider this part: He retracted, for example, his comment that Tehran would be destroyed if Iran launched a nuclear weapon. ?I retract it, of course, when I said, ?One is going to raze Tehran,? ? he said. In the actual text of the interview, Chirac seems more conscious of how deterrence works. However, this is the one thing you do not want to water down. UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has an interesting theory for why Chirac seemed more lucid in the second interview