Give the award for lowest comment of the week to French President Françoise Hollande — who used Sunday’s solemn anniversary to blame George W. Bush for the deadly wave of terror that’s left France in a state of national emergency for most of a year.
To mark the 15th anniversary of 9/11, Hollande took to Facebook to say: “The response that the American administration gave to these attacks … far from eradicating the threat, expanded it over a wider area.
Namely to Iraq. And even though France … rightly refused to join the intervention … it has nonetheless been a victim of the consequences of the chaos it caused.”
Never mind that Iraq, Syria and Libya were all at peace when Bush left office, with the terror threat seemingly receding. Set aside, too, the role of French policy (both domestic and foreign) in building the current threat to France.
Even if Hollande’s complaint had merit, a French president had no business slamming his nation’s most important ally on so sacred a day. Rather than play the blame game, far better to focus on following through on his promise after last November’s Paris attacks, when he vowed to “destroy” ISIS and terrorism.