The man with the 'open shirt' sells Sarkozy a war but does not think highly of him!

"...From the uprising's outset, the French president's objective was to take down Gaddafi, says an intelligence source close him. "We almost decided to do it ourselves," he adds. The French have a long history of unilateral interventions in Africa, including against Gaddafi in Chad in the 1980s. This time, however, they quickly found partners. The British under Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron were very much on board. So were the leading members of the Arab League, who had their own grudges against Gaddafi. But Sarkozy seemed practically obsessed.....

But you can't just support an amorphous "uprising." You need somebody to call. Who could speak for the New Libya? Sarkozy had no idea.

At just that moment, BHL rang the Elysée Palace switchboard to tell the president he'd decided to go to the rebel capital of Benghazi. Sarkozy told BHL to let him know if he found any leaders among the fighters, and the self-styled intellectual swashbuckler needed no further encouragement... BHL has always taken the side of those he saw as oppressed—and never failed to promote himself in the process...

Sarkozy and BHL used to be good friends. They went skiing together in Alpe d'Huez and vacationed on the Riviera... The BHL-Sarkozy friendship turned icy during Sarkozy's 2007 presidential run. BHL backed the Socialist candidate and, adding ink to injury, published the story of Sarkozy's failed efforts to recruit him. "Now I hear the clannish, feudal, possibly brutal Sarkozy that his opponents have denounced, and which I never wanted to believe in," BHL wrote: "a man with a warrior vision of politics, who hystericizes relations, believes that those who aren't with him are against him, who doesn't care about ideas, who thinks interpersonal relations and friendship are the only things that matter."

Then Sarkozy's wife ditched him and Sarkozy hooked up with Carla Bruni, who had previously stolen the husband of BHL's daughter. To describe relations among the French elite as incestuous is almost literally true......

On a sketchy old satellite phone that shut off every few minutes, BHL repeatedly called Sarkozy—who put up with the interruptions—and brokered a deal for a Libyan delegation to be received in Paris at the presidential palace... He asked Sarkozy to keep the whole thing a secret from the Germans, who were already expressing reservations about supporting the Libyan uprising—and also from French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, who would, BHL insisted, "throw a wrench in the works."

Sarkozy was riding high just then. He bragged to the Libyans that he'd have no problem persuading the European Union to back his play. But at a summit in Brussels the day after he recognized their government, he found "the door slammed in his face," says a friend. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to distance herself from French bellicosity, and, following her lead, the German press branded Sarkozy and BHL "a pair of egomaniacs."...

... According to sources close to the Élysée, the French now have covert military trainers on the ground in Libya and are sending in munitions by sea as well as attacking Gaddafi's military from the air. It's still very much Sarkozy's war—until something else, or someone else, attracts his attention."