Evening the Odds

Leave it to the French to bend logic until it breaks as President Sarkosy explains why his country is helping Libya to build nuclear power plants.

"Nuclear power is the energy of the future," he said. "If we don't give the energy of the future to the countries of the southern Mediterranean, how will they develop themselves? And if they don't develop, how will we fight terrorism and fanaticism?"

The president added that if the West considered that Arab countries were "not sensible enough to use civilian nuclear power", this would risk a "war of civilizations".

Aside from the fact that Libya already has plenty of oil to produce power, that Colonel Gaddafi is as flaky as a box of corn flakes, and that he has a track record of trying to get his hands on WMDs, if there is even the remotest chance of a "war or civilisations" wouldn't be prudent to forget appeasing our enemies in favour of making certain that they be kept as far from getting nuclear weapons as possible?

But then France wouldn't have anyone to surrender to.