From a Franco-friendly reader:

“The European ‘lesson’ seems to be that war is, as Chirac recently said, ‘always a failure.’ That’s simply the wrong lesson”
Unfortunately for Team Glib (captain: J. Goldberg), that’s not what Chirac said.
Here’s what he said:
La deuxième idée, a-t-il poursuivi, est que “pour nous la guerre est toujours un constat d’échec et c’est toujours la plus mauvaise des solutions. Et donc que tout doit être fait pour l’éviter”.
Agence France-Presse (and I think they’re the authority on this matter) translated it as:
The second is that, “for us, war is always evidence of failure. Everything must be done to avoid war.”
As in “evidence diplomacy has failed.”
It’s inconvenient and may even dry up your enthusiasm for Holocaust collaboration jokes, but it’s also roughly what President Bush has repeatedly said (war is the last option, I don’t want to go to war etc).

I’m not sure the two statements/sentiments are identical and I don’t think it diminishes any of my points any, including the jokes. But fair is fair.