French FM Bernard Kouchner gets a taste back of the Balkans this week as the Russians, apparently intent on reviving the Cold War, are also blocking the latest UN effort on Kosovo. But it’s in the Middle East that he finds out another Balkans, as his efforts at renewing dialogue in Lebanon “did not fail but did not yet succeed.”

Although he admits that “faced with a crisis, one has to talk to all protagonists” when asked whether France will bring Iran and Syria to the negotiating table, his pragmatism doesn’t obscure his opinions overall when he corrects his Italian counterpart by refusing the self-loathing appreciation that Hamas’s involvement with Al-Qaeda is the West’s own fault.