Somehow this picture keeps converging in my mind that its going to take the shape of some perverse phallic entity, that for some strange reason makes a lot of sense...
"he told the world that the choice was either to let the Islamic Republic develop a nuclear bomb or bomb it before it can"
In fact, he did no such thing. He precisely enunciated the belief that a choice between these two was to be avoided, in some unstated magical way. Ducking the inevitability of such a choice is emphatically not insisting on the inevitability of such a choice. There is no new realism in French policy. There is instead continued head in the sand evasion of responsibility.