To me, you're making a wild supposition here, and one that I believe is quite wrong. All the evidence we have suggests that Bush/Powell/Blair thought they could get France on board using liberally applied diplomatic pressure. They were wrong; they failed to get France to be reasonable. But to you it's all preordained, a conspiracy in effect if not in word. That's the kind of hazy thinking I don't buy into.....
I don't know where the 'conspiracy' thing came in - I don't see a conspiracy here - not a word about preordained. I just think it was a pretty good bet France wouldn't support us - much of the world was not supporting us and France didn't even let us fly over them in the last war, when much of the world was supporting us. It wasn't a stretch to think they wouldn't this time - my goodness 99.9% of the world didn't support it. Doesn't have anything to do with the right or wrong of it - just that France's lack of support did not come as a big surprise to me - I can't imagine it did to the President. Maybe it did to some Americans - or maybe they just want to have a little fun and find someone to vent their anger on - but there is a whole wide world out there they could be hating.
France did no more and no less than a lot of other countries did - act in what they felt was their best interests or at least take the actions their citizens wanted them to take. So why are we hating France so much - it easy - it fun and it doesn't hurt - no sacrifice - and it keeps everyone's mind off the ones who didn't support us and really should have - like Mexico and China and all our other 'favored traders'.
While we are focusing on the French silliness, our 'friend' Mexico wants some strange contact in our military with all of Mexican decent?, is giving dual citizenship Mexican/American to American citizens - is still exporting people for us to feed and in doing so is giving cover for terrorists to come into this country.
We are continuing our lop-sided trading with China and China is building its military, with our money, and taking a company out of America that is the last company to build components for some of our technology.
Never mind that heavy stuff - we are too busy keeping America free - we are not eating French fries!!!