Posted 2:43 AM by Paul
Whisper it Quietly - the French Were Right


I am an Englishman and therefore genetically programmed to distrust the French. Most English people are suspicious of them despite the fact that, according to a recent survey, 43% of us dream of retiring to a country house in the Dordogne. Newspapers which howl with indignation at every perceived slight by our neighbours across the English Channel run promotions where the 1st prize is a Breton gite.

When Chirac did not accept Blair's lawyer's logic that an invasion of Iraq was urgently needed due to the fact that Saddam and co. must be hiding something because the UN could not find anything - we smelled a rat. The smooth talking Gaul must be up to something. Even if he isn't then he is just plain wrong. After all what does he know? He doesn't even speak English properly.

Seven months down the line and it turns out that Johnny Foreigner was right all along. Lets go back to the tragi-comedy at the UN before last Christmas. The French analysis [I paraphrase] was simple.

- Bomb Iraq into submission and you will inflict indefensible civilian casualties.

- An unprovoked attack will ensure that the neighbouring countries will stay out of the war and the subsequent peace keeping efforts.

- An occupation of Iraq by exclusively Western Christian forces will create a magnet for terrorists, Islamisists and all sorts of assorted loony tunes desperate to die for the cause. It will inflame the Arab world. A war would be an excellent recruiting platform for Al Quaida.

- Main and kill children and their dads will come looking for revenge.

- You may get bogged down in a long guerilla warfare

The view from Paris was dismissed as a load of pessimistic existentialist whining by most UK observers. The altogether more sunny prognosis (crowds of Iraqis cheering their liberators, stocks of WOMDs found within days, Britney Spears at the Baghdad AstroDome) of Blair and Bush was the accepted wisdom. One US general quipped that when the war was over in a few days they might allow the French in to collect the weapons of the Iraqi army. Not thinking for a moment that they would simply take off their uniforms and take their rocket launchers home with them.

To be fair I thought that was going to be the case when I saw the pictures of celebration when Saddam was gone. The French had got it wrong after all. Tony knew something that we didn't. That will teach me not to judge history by one televisual image. Now we are in the bloody aftermath that is not an aftermath at all. The war has only just started. Serious military analysts are saying the unthinkable. Maybe Saddam planned it like this all along.

A few months ago the French spokesman on foreign affairs Dominique de Villepain proposed a handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi Authority within 12 months. Oh how they laughed! As recently as last week this was dismissed as " a fantasy" by the Italians. This week it is official US policy.

Damn those Frenchies. They fooled us with a deadly new diplomatic technique. The Truth.