[xm177e2]

It sounds like Chirac's best move right now would be to get in touch with Labor party dissidents and try to take down Blair from underneath.

[Zack Nguyen]

To flip the finger at Turkey is to risk doing grave damage not just to NATO but to one of the few functioning Islamic states.

I'd like to flip the finger to France and Germany. On the floor of the UN. During primetime.

BTW, I am not sure that Turkey can be classified as an "Islamic state" ala Iran or Saudi Arabia. Others can speak to this, but I do not think that the religion of Islam is mated to the state in Turkey as it is in those other places.

[colorado tanker]

Steyn is brilliant. I really hope Chirac and the British lefties don't get Blair, although in the long run it could help the Tories by splitting Labour and taking it left again.

[baggadonuts]

The Complete Military History of France

Gallic Wars - Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.

Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by female
schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare; "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."

Italian Wars - Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.

Wars of Religion - France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots

Thirty Years War - France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.

War of Devolution - Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.

The Dutch War - Tied

War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War - Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.

War of the Spanish Succession - Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.

American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the
Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.

The Napoleonic Wars - Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.

The Franco-Prussian War - Lost. Germany plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.

World War I - Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.

World War II - Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.

War in Indochina - Lost. French forces plead sickness, take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu

Algerian Rebellion - Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a western army by a Non-Turkish Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare; "We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese and Esquimaux.

War on Terrorism - France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador, fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's.

[maica]

Wow!! I love Steyn's insights and his ability to explain them!

France can only maintain its 'image' of power by forcing a truly strong country (morally, economically and militarily) to kowtow to them. They have not even come to terms with the fact that English is the world language of commerce, rather than French.

I believe that GW Bush will not accept these terms of surrender.

[The Great Satan]

Despite the best efforts of the French and Germans, the old butcher will be gone in a few weeks.

Steyn has completely lost it.

[hattend]

Mark Steyn, I give you another BTTT

[headsonpikes]

The wogs begin at Calais.

Too, too true.

[Paul Ross]

Yup. Steyn, even when low-key, hits 'em out of the park.

[Billthedrill]

Good stuff from Steyn. The membership of the Belgium/France/Germany clique alone should give everyone a clue that there's a push going on here for the EU to attempt to flex its political muscle in the absence of any cogent military musculature. This, in the face of a number of new EU members who may or may not go along with the current total domination of EU policy-making by those countries. The latter are, in addition, closer geographically to Saddam and hence to any weapons he may cook up.

From the Axis of Weasels perspective (hereinafter "AOW") it's a win-win situation - they divorce Britain from influence in the EU, they buffalo the new EU members, they neutralize NATO as an active player, and they give everyone on the continent the idea that the only alternative to U.S. hegemony is that of the AOW. Understand that the U.S. and Britain don't have to lose in Iraq for all this to take place - even a swift, relatively bloodless victory there will not affect this ploy.

There is a risk, and appearances are that it's a big one - the other members of the EU have to play along. If they don't, then it becomes painfully obvious that membership in that supposed federation of equals is, in fact, merely a more or less complete surrender of sovereignty in those areas that the bureaucrats in Brussels decide are their rightful demesne. This manifested itself in the form of common economic policy last year, whose lack of success is certain to make people in Madrid and Milan wonder if perhaps adding military and political subordination on top of that is an altogether good idea.

This is a calculated risk. It would be arrogant for Washingon DC to claim that it speaks for all of Europe and despite the noise to that effect I cannot really remember an occasion when it has done so. It is not, evidently, to be considered arrogant for that claim to be made in Paris, Brussels, and Berlin. Not by those in charge of the AOW, at least. By those in Madrid and Milan it's rather another matter.

But one can understand the motivation of the AOW to move the resolution of this situation back into the UN or the like. There, they possess a parity of power with the United States - one does not have to pay for a vote in blood. The AOW possesses three such votes in that venue, and the United States but one, two if Great Britain, God bless 'em, have signed on. That that three-to-two ratio does not represent the respective military and economic power hardly needs pointing out. And that explains a good deal about why the AOW wants it in that court.

[Paleo Conservative]

My solution, when the CDU takes over control of the German government, the members of NATO should vote to expel France and Belguim. Some German armoured divisions should be placed along the Belgian border ready to invade France if necessary. NATO would have gotten rid of its biggest problem, the French-German collaboration would be ended, and the EU would be weakend.

[GOPJ]

bump

[HanneyBean]

Can you add me to the Steyn ping list? He's fantastic.
Thanks!

[Libertina]

For the rest of us, what's at stake since September 11th, since that Durban conference even, is the survival of "the West"
Survival of the West BUMP

[patricia]

Thanks and BTTT!

[Stefan Stackhouse]

We have finally had to face up to the reality: if the time ever does come where we REALLY need help, neither France, nor Germany, nor Belgium will be there for us. They will wimp out, if not stab us in the back.

It has probably been this ways for years, but we have politely maintained the fiction that they were "allies" -- partially due to shear inertia, and partially because the reality was too painful to face.

Well, now we have come to face it, and it is painful, but it is time to be honest and realistic and deal with it.

The brutal fact of the matter is that it is DANGEROUS to have an "ally" that is unreliable. A nation makes plans and decisions on the assumption that its allies can be relied upon to keep their commitments. When an "ally" reneges on a treaty obligation, that can have drastic and dangerous consequences. A nation -- any nation -- is much better off with no allies at all than with "allies" that cannot be relied upon.

Perhaps we should count ourselves fortunate that we found out now, before very much was really on the line. But whatever the case, we have found out, and we must now adjust to the reality that France, Germany, and Belgium cannot be relied upon as allies any longer.

[NorthernRight]

This is an extremely perceptive and astute analysis.. However... what's interesting is that at about the same time as mark Steyn conceived these thoughts, another Canadian pundit came up with a very similar analysis also.

Canadian commentator Howard Galganov published some very similar views in his piece The Iraqi Affair - Maybe It's More Than Meets The Eye.

Worth a look.