Suddenly French president Jacques Chirac is playing tough guy, and saying that France must maintain its nukes as a deterrent against terrorist attacks. I’m curious: What would Chirac and his EU buddies have said if Bush was talking up the nuclear option? Something tells me that we’d have to suffer through another round of tiresome condemnations about cowboy bravado and imperial hyperpower.

Specifically, Chirac said that France should have the option of using nuclear weapons against states that sponsor terrorist acts against it. Given that most terrorists are non-state actors, it’s not clear whether this is an option that Chirac will ever have to consider. But even so, it brings to mind something Chirac said shortly after 9-11. You may recall that he was the first foreign leader to visit the United States after the Twin Towers fell, and that the media hailed his appearance as the act of an old ally reaffirming its traditional friendship with America. But at a White House event on 9-18, when Bush spoke of “a new kind of war,” Chirac offered a corrective that few people noticed at the time: “I don’t know whether we should use the word war,” he said. In Our Oldest Enemy, my co-author and I interpreted France’s subsequent behavior, at the UN Security Council and elsewhere, through the prism of that remark.

Chirac’s new comment did give me an idea, though: Four years ago, maybe we should have nuked Tora Bora. I’m sure the French would have understood.