Friedman: replace France with India

In his NYTimes column today, Tom Friedman argues that France should be replaced on the UN Security Council by India, "Because India is the world's biggest democracy, the world's largest Hindu nation and the world's second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly."

He goes on to outline this French silliness. Referring to a number of incoherent statements made by France's "diplomacy-lite foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin," Friedman notes this doozy: "Mr. de Villepin also suggested that Saddam's government pass "legislation to prohibit the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction." (I am not making this up.) That proposal alone is a reminder of why, if America didn't exist and Europe had to rely on France, most Europeans today would be speaking either German or Russian." Ouch!