Whose "Engagement" Is It?

I have a bit different of a take then the Admiral on France's return to Iraq:

France proclaimed its desire to help restore peace in Iraq after a visit yesterday to Baghdad by its Foreign Minister ended the four-year diplomatic freeze that followed the US-led invasion.

As Paris media hailed “The French return to Iraq”, Bernard Kouchner concluded his three-day trip with a pledge that under President Sarkozy, France would no longer sit on the sidelines saying “we told you so”.

The position had changed since President Chirac led an international coalition against the invasion, he said. “The world knows that the Americans cannot get this country out of its troubles all alone. The more the Iraqis seek the intervention of the United Nations, the more France will help them,” he added. [emphasis added]

I quite agree that this is a vast improvement over the snotty hostility that typified French behavior under Black Jacques Chirac, to say nothing of their active, enthusiastic Saddamy. I also acknowledge that President Sarkozy is limited in how active he can make his support for the Coalition's mission.

But isn't it substantially less than an unmixed blessing to encourage the Iraqi government to seek "intervention" from the self-same organization that vigorously collaborated with Saddam Hussein (i.e. the Oily Food program) and cynically facilitated the continuance of his WMD efforts? As well as the same den of thugs and thieves that is even more up the ass of the Iranian mullahgarchy, which would seem to stand to be the biggest beneficiary of the UN supplanting the US as the caller of Mesopotamian shots.

Speaking for my country, I appreciate President Sarkozy's gesture. But I am more than willing to settle for his country not being the epitome of international prickdom if it means keeping out of Iraq the bunch that wrote the proverbial book it - and was one of the biggest reasons why we had to invade in the first place.