First, there's The Real Cowboys: Colin Powell vs France and Germany

1441, supported by France, put the entire onus for disarmament on Saddam not the inspectors. How can 1441 be enforced by insisting upon the opposite? The French position cannot be explained because Saddam has altered course. Even with a quarter of million allied troops breathing down his neck and a last last last chance offered him by the U.N., Saddam is still shunting mobile chemical and bio weapons factories around the country; and hoodwinking inspectors. What chance is there that if the U.N. now essentially interprets 1441 as a piece of magical realist fiction, Saddam will feel more pressure to comply? Zero. On the contrary, he will rightly take the climbdown as an incentive to maintain his current strategy of Potemkin cooperation.



Any sincere multilateralist knows this. The choice now is not between war and peace. It is between a credible 21st Century multilateralism and a return to pure Great Power unilateralism. Ironically, the British and Americans and East Europeans are the multilateralists in this instance; while the French and Germans and Chinese and Russians insist on wrecking the credibility of the U.N. To put it in terms that the Old Europeans might understand, the French and the Germans are the cowboys in international relations right now, treating U.N. resolutions as so many fictions to be dispensed with when they seem to wound national pride, or worse, might actually empower the United States.



And on Jaques Chirac, All for One

Such matters, if discussed at all in public, tend to count for little in terms of French votes. Far more damaging is the whiff of corruption that has trailed Chirac since his earliest days in politics. His three terms as Mayor of Paris were notable for the remarkably high standard of living and many extended holidays that the Chiracs enjoyed. Jacques managed 45 solo trips to Japan alone. His claims to have become a sushi aficionado and sumo wrestling fan sounded reasonable enough. But where did the money come from? Chirac's personal finances at this time are the subject of a long-running, but currently stalled, investigation.



For in 2001 a court ruled that the President was immune from prosecution - or even questioning - for as long as he remained in office. To no one's great surprise, Chirac decided to run again last year - defeating the yawn-inducing Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the first round and routing Le Pen in the run-off. Bent or honest, popular or loathed, as George W Bush and Tony Blair pursue the tricky task of bringing France on-side, Chirac is the only game in town.