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France cannot "afford", either financially or politically, to lose Arab Trade Partners in the Middle East. America spent the past 30-years trying to prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical and weapons technology to Arabs preaching "death to Israel, death to America". During this timeframe, our friends the French have tied their trade and political fortunes to arming America's enemies, and oftentimes in violation of the UN embargos. Doing business on the black market is always very profitable. Today, France stands on the verge of isolation in the political world and her investments abroad no longer return the dividends required to maintain the socialist system (Between the devaluation of US/Global Stocks and the increased value of theEuro). The War on Terrorism boils down to a war on French Trade interests and against French Allies. France will see her economy take a 3-5% hit on Iraq alone. Germany, Russia and China all have varying interests in the Arab countries economically/politically as well and will also lose "influence". Given the fact that the USA and Brition have had very little financial interest in Iraq, the cost of war will be offset in the short term by revenues generated by contracts and oil prices dropping, and in the long term by political stability in the Region, but most important of all, Chiraq's French government will fall from power in the next election cycle as French people realize the mismanagement of their political-economic relations world-wide placed too much emphasize on questionable Arab partnerships. Economic reality alone will set the tone for a more conservative French government which will be less vocal and more aligned with Western interests.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled some interesting figures on French economic involvement in Iraq.

Bottom line is France will pay a heavy price for her failure to spread her trade out among more stable nations.

"Economic reality alone will set the tone for a more conservative French government which will be less vocal and more aligned with Western interests."

I hope you're right. It is the 10% of France's population that is Muslim that worries me. All you have to do is posture as an anti-American and anti-Israeli, as Chirac is doing, and you have automatically locked in 10% of the vote. And that's not to mention the greater percentage of socialists/communists in France, who have always and will always hate America. That will not change anytime soon, and will probably only get worse.

(Oh yes, and Belgium, one of the Axis of Weasels, in the year 2020 will be 50% Muslim. They, too, will be forever anti-American, barring any unforseen changes in demographics -- their politicians have any easy route to lock in 50% of the vote by posturing as anti-American.)

Unless a conservative movement gains traction and gains traction quickly, continental Europe will slowly wither on the vine as a refuge of liberal democracy. Their weakness and intellectually lazy reliance on the UN is the greatest threat to long-term security, not the United States.

Bottom line is France will pay a heavy price for her failure to spread her trade out among more stable nations.

That would not have been such a terminal mistake if Chirac hadn't spit in the faces of Blair, Bush and Powell. Iraq will most likely be more than happy to favor US and UK cos. with re-building contracts. And it looks like we have protected the oil wells enough so that there will be money to pay for the effort.
And it's not likely a new Iraqi regime will pay the money that Saddam owed them.

They forgot the rule - when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging!