what sarkozy brings:
A whopping record 86% of French voters went to the polls today to give an unambiguous victory to the autocratic, demagogic, hard-right nationalist Sarkozy, who campaigned on promises of a "rupture" with France's mixed economy and its welfare state, one of the most extensive in Europe.
(...) The crowd in the hall where Sarkozy declared victory after the polls closed repeatedly sang the national anthem, La Marseillaise -- with its famous xenophobic refrain, "Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!" (Translation: Let us march, let us march, May impure blood soak the furrows of our fields.) And Sarkozy's campaign was marked by incessant appeals to racism and the fear of immigrants, symbolized by his adoption of a slogan used by the neo-fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, "France, love it or leave it," and by his proposal for a new "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity," which was widely criticized by the left and by anti-racist groups for amalgamating the two concepts and suggesting a fundamental opposition between the two.
(...) That lurch to the right five years ago by a significant portion of formerly left voters was confirmed by today's vote, in which more than two-thirds of former Le Pen voters -- many of them from the one-time Communist-dominated working class suburbs -- went for Sarkozy, according to the exit polls.
(...) But in reality, what Sarkozy's victory means for France is something closer to the so-called "Reagan Revolution" in the U.S. that began in 1981 the process of dismantling and destroying the institutional New Deal legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Chirac was a Gaullist, and the political heritage of General Charles De Gaulle, who led France from 1958 to 1969, included a vigorously statist approach to the economy and defense of a wide series of social protection and social safety-net measures that had been instituted by the left's Popular Front government in the mid-1930s, and which were renewed and extended by post-war governments dominated by the political activists of the Resistance movement to Nazi occupation, who had a conception of government as a guarantor of economic security for all. Sarkozy is of a new generation than Chirac and, ideologically, not a Gaullist -- but rather in phase with the "Chicago school" of economics led by Milton Friedman, which believes in minimal government, a slimmed-down state that interferes as little as possible in the economy, an aggressively laissez-faire approach that is dear to the economic barons of the MEDEF, the French business leaders' association, whose tycoons were solidly behind Sarkozy's candidacy. Sarkozy has already promised to, in effect, abolish the ISF (the tax on large fortunes), accord more tax breaks to big business and the upper-middle-classes, and make more cuts in the state-run national health system (declared by a U.N. survey to be the finest in the world in terms of delivery of health services and quality of care.) Sarkozy's economic program is designed to help the already-privileged classes retain and extend their socio-economic position, to the detriment of the have-nots (the massive pro-Sarkozy vote in the upper-income neighborhoods today confirms that they understood Sarko's message to them.) And he has promised a major down-sizing of the civil service employed by state agencies.
(...) Life for the have-nots will become even more difficult under Sarkozy's hard-right, anti-immigrant, law-and-order society. He has announced "zero tolerance" for illegal immigration, has deported tens of thousands of immigrants during his two terms as Interior Minister and split up immigrant families while making it tougher for them to become French citizens. He has proposed strict minimum sentences for all sorts of crimes, thus removing all discretion from French judges, and France's already-crowded prisons will soon be overflowing with expanded, and younger, populations. French prisons, like ours, are training institutes for criminals, and by sending ever-larger numbers of young people to them for petty offenses Sarkozy will, in fact, be manufacturing new generations of hardened voyous (thugs in French.)
(...) And, in a major campaign speech just days before the election, Sarkozy surprisingly devoted 20 minutes of his discourse to a violent denunciation of the May 1968 student-worker revolt (Sarko was only 14 at the time of that rebellion.). The heritage of May ';68, Sarko thundered, must be "liquidated." He blamed it for a generalized attitude of "laxisme," for France's having become a country "in which work has no value, in which people think they can do anything they feel like doing, in which people are lazy," and on and on. May '68 was, of course, the fountain of social ferment that led to the sexual revolution, to women's liberation and the legalization of abortion, the gay liberation movement and the eventual repeal of laws criminalizing homosexuality, and a whole series of cultural changes that opened up a stuffy, arteriosclerotic French society. But May '68 was also a general strike by 11 million French workers that gained union recognition in many factories, higher wages, and that won a reinforcement of the social safety net in an agreement (negotiated on behalf of then-President Georges Pompidou by a young Jacques Chirac) that became known as "les accords de la rue de Grenelle" (the agreement of Grenelle Street). What was unstated in Sarko's anti-May '68 speech was that all that sort of thing, too, must be "liquidated."

orientalizing iran:
as the late Edward Said has comprehensively explained in his thesis on Orientalism, dates back to the 19th century: A curious, adventurous Westerner sets out to intellectually and sexually conquer the land of the Persians, friends and family warn him of the “mullahs,” chadors, and myriad other dangers and evils which await in this daring escapade; nevertheless, in the tradition of his colonialist forefathers Hitchens sets out on his journey exemplifying the masculinity that runs through the veins of conquerors and conjuring up images of tanks and artilleries which are its ultimate palpable manifestation.
(...) Even more disturbing is the message behind these images, that somehow these real or imagined characteristics of Iranian women should be the basis of international dialogue. Even today, some prominent academics refer to the “exceptional” beauty of Iranian women and their embodiment of “modern” ethics as a reason why an invasion should be avoided. In this process, international law, respect for national sovereignty, and political discourse become secondary. Furthermore, This contradiction also begs the question: What are readers to think, that those nations and people of the world who do not subscribe to neo-liberal standards of beauty and sexuality are suitable for extinction? Is sexual orientation the new marker for salvation from the American empire?
(...) I found Tehran much less oppressively Islamic than Kensington High Street in London, where an ever-growing number of women voluntarily go about in black shrouds, masks and veils,” “I have tried to understand the sweet, sad mystery of Iran's unique brand of Islam, quite unlike the hard, aggressive faith found in the Arab lands,” and, “…the last thing the ayatollahs need is for the peoples of Europe and America to know much about their country and its people, or to realise the truth - that Iran is our natural ally in the Middle East, a European civilization trapped by history and geography in the midst of Arabia. It does not belong there, culturally or religiously.”
(...) In fact, diversity in thought, political orientation, and religious adherence are dominant characteristics of both historical and contemporary Iranian society. Nevertheless, the theory advocated by Hitchens has been internationally imposed on the Iranian people, engendering social problems and cultural disintegration in the most aggressive way. Further, while Iranian women have been trying to dispel the myth that contemporary style clashes with Islamic-Persian identity for more than a century, Hitchens takes readers back to the early 1900s with the stroke of a pen, proposing a dogmatic understanding of Iranian society which the ulama, he aims to discredit throughout the text, argue against.
(...) The article portrays the Iranian state as an indecisive, feisty yet weak female, ready to be disciplined and maintained by its beloved Western cowboy. Why bomb them, the author poses, when we can coerce them through other means, and in the process, enjoy the sight and senses of their women.