France had no interest in helping us kill jihadis in Iraq. And they had little appetite for fighting jihadis even in Afghanistan (we weren't all Americans for long, it seems), but in France's sphere of influence, France is willing to fight jihadis:
France has proposed keeping a permanent force of 1,000 French troops in Mali to fight armed Islamist militants, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday.
Fabius, on a visit to Bamako, said France was pushing ahead with plans to reduce its 4,000-strong military presence from the end of this month but planned to keep a combat force in Mali to support a future U.N. peacekeeping mission.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called last week for the deployment of a U.N. mission of 11,200 troops and 1,440 police in Mali once major combat ends.
They need to spend more effort keeping the Tuaregs on board the anti-al Qaeda effort, in my opinion. Our presence in Iraq never inspired a national resistance (Baathists, al Qaeda, and Sadrists pre-existed our invasion), but a French presence in Mali could do just that in regard to the Tuaregs.
But isn't it amazing that after the major combat operations phase is over that France will keep a quarter of its attack force in Mali as a "permanent" force? I salute them. Really. I wish them well and hope we provide assistance in recon and drone strikes to help them out. Mali isn't important to us, but killing jihadis is.
My envy is because in the far more important country of Iraq, our administration wouldn't even leave 3,000 troops to hold our gains made at a higher cost. I wanted 25,000. And I only wanted them until Iraq could stand on their feet without us against internal and external threats.
France has staked out a claim for endless war in Mali. They may still eat cheese, but in their corner of the world they show that surrendering isn't on the menu.
I guess I just don't get nuance. Or maybe our left just confuses sometimes arrogant anti-Americanism with nuance.
