Daniel W. Drezner NOT!

FRANCE AND RUSSIA--SEPARATED AT BIRTH: Mark Brzezinski argues in the New York Times op-ed page that Russia will hem and haw but ultimately side with the U.S. in the Security Council. Just like France.

I know Mark -- he's always worth a read.

EDWARDS, GORE, AND NUNN: Twelve years ago, the Great Democratic Hope for president was Sam Nunn. He was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was considered a "hawk," and he was from the South. The 1992 Democratic presidential nomination was his for the asking.

Then he voted against the Gulf War. He believed that given time, the U.N. sanctions against Iraq would work.

The result? Nunn's reputation was tarnished. Another Southern senator who voted for the Gulf War and was also considered an expert of defense issues supplanted Nunn -- Al Gore.

Now it appears that John Edwards is trying to steal a page from Gore's playbook. We know where Gore stands on Iraq -- whatever the administration is proposing must be wrong. Edwards' position on Iraq is both supportive of the overall policy while making it clear that he thinks the process of building allied support for an attack could have been handled better. His term "gratuitous unilateralism" perfectly ecapsulates the media Zeitgeist, which ensures greater media exposure. Leaking the speech to the Washington Post ensured media play without stealing the President's thunder, as Andrew Sullivan notes.

Substantively, there is not a lot of difference between what Gore and Edwards are saying. What's different is that Edwards ultimately supports the decision to attack sooner rather than later while Gore thinks... we should wait and give the sanctions time to work.

If a war on Iraq plays out well, Sam Nunn will be welcoming Al Gore to the Old Democratic Hopefuls Home for some games of shuffleboard and Diplomacy. Meanwhile, Edwards notes, "This is the first of three speeches outlining ways to strengthen America at home and abroad. In the coming weeks, I will talk about what kind of leadership we need to get our economy back on track and focus on ways to strengthen education in America."

There are some people who just give off the whiff of being smart about politics. Edwards definitely has the scent.

THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH: InstaPundit has a lengthy post on France and Al Qaeda, in particular how the French will respond to terrorist attacks against them.

The key to understanding what the French will do in international relations was made clear to me a decade ago by an American woman who grew up there: "France will do whatever it takes to magnify their importance." Most of the time, this means publicly disagreeing with the United States about a vital matter of world politics, before caving in if the Americans call their bluff. [Hey, replace "U.S." with Germany, and you can explain their warfighting capabilities as well--ed. Just kidding!!]

Ah, the French. Teaching international relations, making jokes about ethnicities or nationalities is improper classroom decorum. Except the French. If I ever want to get a cheap laugh, all I have to do is say "France" and roll my eyes. Works every time.

Fair? No, but neither is the European assumption that all Americans are trigger-happy, illiterate rednecks. In the end, everything balances out.

READING ASSIGNMENT: Jean Elshtain argues contra Walzer that an attack on Iraq would be a just war in the Boston Globe. What I find interesting about this is that it appeared in the Globe, not the New York Times or the Washington Post. Elshtain is a heavyweight; did the Times or the Post say no? Or is the Globe Ideas section moving up in the world, as Mickey Kaus suggested last month?

IS NORTH KOREA THE MODEL FOR IRAQ?: Hans Blix’s support of a tough new UN Security Council resolution reminded me that Blix headed the International Atomic Energy Agency during the early 1990’s inspections crisis with North Korea. During that situation, Blix was a rarity among international organization heads; he was results-oriented rather than process-oriented. The contrast with Kofi Annan could not be starker.

Blix’s appearance in both the Iraq and North Korea crises raises an interesting question – why hasn’t the current debate over Iraq invited more comparisons to the North Korean crisis of 1994? God knows, commentators have been making silly comparisons to the Cuban Missile Crisis; why no reference to the North Korea episode? I think the answer is that the way that crisis unfolded and was resolved poses vexing questions for both sides in the debate.

For the anti-war crowd, the problem is that the history of that bargaining episode shows the limits of what negotiations, sanctions and embargoes can accomplish. For over two years, the U.S. tried to reach a resolution that would get the North Koreans back into the IAEA regime. The North Koreans only gave ground when it seemed that a sanction was imminent. They only indicated a willingness to cut a comprehensive agreement after it was clear that the U.S., Japan, and South Korea were ready to impose sanctions and respond to North Korean provocations with force.

For the pro-war crowd, the problem is that this case suggests that it is possible to cut a deal with Hussein. Despite what Jeffrey Goldberg has said, the North Korean regime is just as nasty as Hussein’s Iraq. Over the past four decades, North Korea has kidnapped citizens from other countries, engaged in terrorist activities (including blowing up airplanes), repeatedly tried to subvert and provoke South Korea, preferred starving its own people to reforming its economy, actively developed weapons of mass destruction, and proliferated missile technology to other state supporters of terrorism. All that said, the 1994 deal to trade inspections for reactor technology has essentially held. New York Times op-eds to the contrary, the regime is still pretty nasty. But the U.S. was able to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons without regime change. Simply put, coercive bargaining can work [Coercive? Didn’t the North Koreans get a whopping $5 billion carrot out of the deal?—ed. They got a promise of that investment, yes, but they only agreed to it because the alternative was economic and possibly military coercion.]

It’s possible that Saddam Hussein will decide that he prefers war to “coercive inspections.” If he permits the inspections, however, those who favor the use of force will be split into those favoring regime change at any price (Rumsfield) and those who care about eliminating the weapons of mass destruction first (Powell). I’m not completely sure which side of this fence I sit on – there are compelling arguments for both.

The North Korea case suggests that those who favor negotiation at any price are fools – but it also suggests that those who are bound and determined to change the regime in Iraq are underestimating the power of coercive bargaining.

UPDATE: Aziz Poonawalla has an interesting take on the potential faultlines among the pro-war crowd -- link via InstaPundit [Duh.--ed.]