/more from Belmont:
"The events in France may turn out to have a greater strategic impact than September 11. French policies, however maddening, had the virtue of serving as the control case to the American experiment of attempting to reform the Islamic world. The latter acknowledged, however shyly, that it was facing an aggression which had to be met at the root; which had to be resolved by building viable societies in Islamic homelands. The former, and France in particular, maintained there was nothing that temporizing and appeasement, in one form or another, could not solve. What events in France have done is discredit the liberal recipe so badly that even those who are not prepared to admit that American policy may have been right must now root around for an alternative theory."
There is no alternative. Either appease again, hoping to put off the day of reckoning, or face them down and fight for France. The second choice is America/Bush's choice...and we were smart enough to fight the battle where our enemies lived and trained. France has to find some way to blame this on America and Bush. That's a given. What they do about it is another matter.