[ggekko]

I predict that when push comes to shove the French will abstain and not veto. They have pulled this kind of maneuver before.

Tony Blair is betting the ranch on Iraq and we had better back him up and give the Brits a lion's share of the spoils after Hussein is gone.

The Bush team has been insensitve to the growing Franco-German threat in Europe to try set "Fortress Europe" and freeze us out. We need to become engaged in Europe and try to help our Continental allies steer the EU back to its original vision.

[The Great Satan]

In his SOTU speech, Bush warned that "one vial"of Saddam's biological WMD would be sufficient to inflict "a day of of horror like none we have ever known" (and 9/11 sets a pretty high bar for that). Obviously, by joining an attack on Iraq, France would be setting itself up for just such a "day of horror" -- as would we be, and as would any country which allied with us. You can therefore take it to the bank that we are not about to launch such an attack, notwithstanding the saber-rattling and posturing, and that we have never had any serious expectation that France, Germany, Russia, etc. are about to join us in an attack. Something else is going on.