haaretz reports that french president nicolas sarkozy has called obama's position on iran "utterly immature." the centerpiece of obama's iran policy is that he wants to reverse the three decade old american policy of refusing to talk to iran and engage in direct talks with the regime. obama's policy wouldn't necessarily mean reestablishing formal diplomatic relations with iran, but it could lead to that.
sarkozy's remarks are odd because france never followed the american no-talk policy. unlike the u.s., it currently has diplomatic relations with iran and an open embassy in tehran. just three years ago france and iran had a direct president-to-president meeting. admittedly the meeting was between both of the current presidents' predecessors. but even on sarkozy's watch, "France has spoken very often with the Iranians", which is pretty much the same "immature" policy that barack obama is now advocating. it makes me wonder what sarkozy thinks of his own maturity level.
UPDATE: sarkozy calls the haaretz report groundless. the french president notes that he and obama share "a broad convergence of views on this issue." but the real joke is on the mccain campaign, which rushed to re-release one of its earlier factually challenged ads about iran all because of the now-discredited story.
