PUSH ALWAYS COMES TO SHOVE:

'Bad Herr Dye' (WILLIAM SAFIRE, January 23, 2003, NY Times)

Chirac had made a deal with the U.S. last fall: we agreed to postpone the invasion of Iraq until after U.N. inspectors had been jerked around long enough to satisfy the world street's opinion, and in return France would not demand a second U.N. resolution before allied forces overthrew Saddam.

As D-Day approached, France sent its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the coming war zone. Chirac made plain that, though a minor and reluctant participant in the attack, France was not to be frozen out of postwar oil arrangements.

Then Schroeder, reliant on his militantly antiwar Greens, made Chirac an offer he could not refuse: to permanently assert Franco-German dominance over the 23 other nations of Continental Europe.

In a stunning power play in Brussels, Germany and France moved to change the practice of having a rotating presidency of the European Council, which now gives smaller nations influence, to a system with a long-term president. This Franco-German czar of the European Union would dominate a toothless president of the European Commission, chosen by the European Parliament.

Little guys of Europe hollered bloody murder this week, but will find it hard to resist the Franco-German steamroller. France then had to repay Schroeder by double-crossing the U.S. at the U.N. That explains France's startling threat to veto a new U.N. resolution O.K.'ing the invasion of Iraq - a second resolution that France had promised Colin Powell would not be needed.

British foreign policy has been based on preventing anyone from becoming dominant on the Continent for what?--maybe four or five centuries? And in order to achieve that goal they've had to fight Spain, France and Germany repeatedly. It's forgivable for liberal academics and leftist politicos not to get what's going on, but how can conservatives be surprised that Europe is descending into classic great power politics instead of approaching the pan-European nirvana? The EU has never been much more than a way for France and Germany to dominate Europe. Sooner or later that had to be unacceptable to Britain (unless it's become completely emasculated). The only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner and that the Tories are so brain dead they aren't exploiting the situation. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 24, 2003 8:41 PM