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As Donald Rumsfeld so eloquently pointed out, the relevance of France as a partner has been reduced to that of an accordian at a duckhunt.

In fact, the sole greatest contribution France has made to America in the past century has been to drag us into virtually every major conflict we've been in, either through their own inability to wage war, or more recently by supplying us with false intelligence, causing us to go where they fear to. (I personally think we should have gone, as we did, into Iraq, but we learned a great lesson on the "value" of French Intelligence.)

While the article points out that we now have clearly taken the lead in dealing with the irresponsible social benevolence of the past sixty years, the unspoken question is "When will the French ( and for that matter the rest of western Europe) come crying for help in dealing with the civil unrest, upheaval and inevitable violence that will arise from their continued tolerance of willful minorities (specifically Islamic) bent on reforming society in their own image?"

The French today are posturing for conciliation, hoping for lucrative contracts in Iraq. This would amount to "Our blood for their oil." Undoubtedly, they will regard this a just payback, since we ruined their sweetheart deal with Saddam. Next will come their need for us to cooperate in "Joint Ventures" to help boost their flagging economy, while ours booms as a result of an overhauled tax code. Before its all over, they'll be asking for our Marines to help them keep order in their streets.

My personal opinion is that , if they need aid, we should allow them to compete in our free market to earn it. Let them sell overpriced wines to pseudo-sophisticates with more money than brains, or perhaps they could just bake a lot of bread. I hear there's a great market for that kind of stuff in Massachusetts and the Pacific Northwest.