A France-centric media outlet sends young missionary into minor cardiac arrest.

Bernard Kouchner--"A-warring we shall go, a-warring we shall go..."

So Monday I was reading www.france24.com (the newly created French CNN) as I try to do once each day or sometimes every other. This was the headline, and I thought "what is 'pire'?" as I frantically clawed for my dictionary. "Pire" means worst. Having identified a few other key words like "Iran," "guerre," (war) and understanding most of the content, I thought, oh, no, meltdown in the Middle East is happening (or did it already?) and I have no clue about it. As the media told me to do, I fell into a disorienting tizzy realizing I am very far away from home as another war begins. I flipped over to the New York Times to find out, what is going on? in English. There was nothing--not a word about Iran, about France, about nuclear anything. And they don't even know, I thought, about my home country and citizens.

Apparently, here is what happened. Foreign Minister of France Bernard Kouchner made some hawkish comments about Iran that not everyone agreed with, not even within his own government. In a nutshell he said, If Iran can't get its act together, the world will have to take hard and decisive action beyond sanctions. Great! Fantastic! Here we go again. However, I kept checking the New York Times and thankfully found this. Under pressure from France and oh, everyone else, Kouchner toned down his comments sometime on Monday. He deferred to the always useful tactic of negotiating rather than waging war. I for one appreciated that France will talk before they go in guns blazing.

Here's the funny aspect of this. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, fearless leader of Iran, made a statement Tuesday that he "did not take seriously" Kouchner's comments. And I quote, "The prescribed actions are different from the real positions/reality." So, was it because France was making the statement or because Ahmadinejad knew no one would go for another war at this time? I'm not sure, but rest easy, citizens of the U.S., there is no war with Iran as of yet. I just thought you should know.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--"Really? Seriously? Nah, I don't believe it."