Conversations with French foreign policy experts serve as a good reminder that, in many ways, the United States is comparatively new to any meaningful exercise of foreign policy. While Washington wasn't a particularly big player much before World War II, the French have been doing this for centuries, and once had colonies on every corner of the globe. When the United States was entering into the mess in Vietnam, France had already been there. It had been a disaster, and they tried to warn us away from it.

Even today, some top French government officials were young political and military leaders when France was embroiled in Algerian conflict, and the painful memories of that disaster shape their reactions to the prospect of going into Baghdad. It seemed that the war in Iraq smelled both bad and familiar to French. The Germans and Canadians were similarly skeptical. All are now eternally grateful they took a pass.

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 8:23 AM | Basie! Home