All this France-bashing is patently ridiculous. France is a sovereign democratic nation. Its leadership is obligated to represent the will of its people. In making the case against a pre-emptive war in Iraq, it turns out that the French people had a better command of the realities of Iraq's non-existent WMDs than did the American public. Perhaps that's because their leaders were more honest than our own Bush administation was.

The simple truth is that both Germany and France supported continued UN inspections, military containment and political isolation of Iraq. This perspective served not just their interests, but our own as well. It represented the more practical and less costly alternative. Now, after having demonizing them for their appropriate skepticism about Iraq's WMDs, it appears that they were right afterall - not just about the lack of WMDs, but also about the ensuing debacle a pre-emptive war would cause. Little wonder why both nations are reluctant offer their respective national resources to rebuild Iraq, unless the incompetents in Washington, who caused this mess in the first place, cede authority.