...It's like "The Secret of My Success" only less sexier and with more atomic weapons

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I spend a good portion of this blog crying about Armageddon and such but there are certain times when I read current events and they trigger and rather silly image in my head. Usually I'm writing about how France does all it can to undermind the US such that outside of sharing intelligence and general trade, there's not much they can agree on. As it turns out, the US and France have a mutual interest in seeing regime change in Syria for a variety reasons. However, Iran has a stake in seeing the Assad regime staying put so now it is attempting to stroke France by mediating between them and Syria. Now this is the same Syria which just brought its troops out of Lebanon as promised and additionally is also where Iran's Hezbollah is trying to repackage itself as a political party. Meanwhile, France via President Jacques Chirac is pushing to allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium, the key ingredient in making an atomic bomb. And then of course there's the US who appears to be wiping the egg of their face and the Iraq-WMD rhetoric, crossing the word "Iraq" and replacing it with "Iran".

In an international policy sense, these series of stories where nations jump back and forth to different sides of an issue reminds me of the end of the Michael J. Fox movie, "The Secret of My Success." At the end of the movie nearly the entire cast is jumping in and out of each other’s bed while trying to hide various affairs from each other until one of the leads announces, "That's it, the sexual revolution is over! Everybody out of the bed!"

Two specific articles caught my eye while surfing Google News on these topics. One from the World Peace Herald stated that, "Iranian President Mohammed Khatami is undertaking a mediation to ease tensions between Syria and France over Lebanon, reports said Tuesday.

Beirut's daily As-Safir quoted "informed sources" as saying Khatami exchanged letters in that regard with French President Jacques Chirac and Bashar Assad of Syria.

Syrian-French relations deteriorated significantly after Paris and Washington joined hands in passing U.N. resolution 1559 calling on Syria to pull its troops and intelligence personnel out of Lebanon."

The other one comes from the Daily Times out of Pakistan and it states, "A former US official said on Monday the Bush administration was inching more and more towards a regime change in Syria...He pointed out that when a senior State Department official was asked on a recent radio programme if the US now out to change the Syrian regime, she did not offer an answer. He said the course on which the administration was embarked carried “unintended consequences”. The administration wanted to achieve regime change in Damascus “on the cheap”...It is also the view in Washington that Iraq cannot be controlled without controlling Iran, he stressed. He said after 9/11, Syria provided invaluable intelligence to Washington that saved American lives. He added that the Bush administration does not see the world in terms of “nuances” and some of its policies defied logic.

In answer to a question, one of the panelists said it was those around Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who were pushing the Syria regime change policy forward. There was also pressure from French President Jacques Chirac who suspected Syria of being involved in the assassination of his friend and reported financial contributor, Lebanese leader Rafiq Harreri. In reply to another question, Leverett said there was no evidence that Syria had had any dealings with the AQ Khan network."

So let's review: the US seems to be hellbent to go to war in Iran and at least instigate revolution in Syria. France is all for regime change in Syria but would like to see Iran continue to dominate in the Middle East and more specifically stick it to the US. Iran wants an atomic bomb and is fusing its fate with that of Syria. France for all kinds of strange reasons doesn't seem to think there’s anything too wrong with Iran having an atomic weapon. France also wants to see the EU become a superpower antithesis to the US but it's own people will mostly likely vote "no" on the constitution and set the whole operation back for God only knows how long. And somewhere in the middle of all this are Russia, Venezuela, N. Korea, China/Taiwan and good old Cuba.

Everybody got all that? Good, because there will be a test at the sound of the BOOM...