Thomas Friedman has a brilliant idea.
Replace France with India as one of the five permanent UN Security Council members.
Why replace France with India? Because India is the world’s biggest democracy, the world’s largest Hindu nation and the world’s second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it’s become silly. India has grown out of that game. India may be ambivalent about war in Iraq, but it comes to its ambivalence honestly. Also, France can’t see how the world has changed since the end of the cold war. India can.
Personally, it sounds good to me. The French are no longer a world power in anything other than their dreams. Their economy is flagging, their military is nonexistant, and the only thing they seem to know how to do diplomatically is strut around pretentiously. With India on the permanent members list we have an opportunity to give the world’s largest democracy the recognition they are due.
Rule #1: Thomas Friedman is always right, even when he is wrong.
Rule #2: Screw France at every chance.