April 5, 2003
WHAT'S THE FRENCH WORD FOR CHUTZPAH?:
France seeks slice of postwar pie (JOHN LEICESTER, April 5, 2003, Chicago Sun Times)The logic is simple, some say simplistic: France refused to fight the war in Iraq and so should not profit from the peace. But stopping France Inc. from sharing in postwar spoils may prove harder than it sounds.Baghdad's water system and much of Iraq's now bomb-blasted phone network were built by French companies. Before the war, France was among Iraq's biggest suppliers of essential goods, according to French figures.
For each of the past five years, the French stand at Baghdad's annual trade fair won the gold medal as the best Western display. [...]
''We should have no illusions, under the savage law of international commerce, American firms will leave us with nothing--or just crumbs,'' said Gilles Munier, secretary-general of a France-Iraq friendship association.
''The political situation is in the hands of the Americans,'' said Alcatel spokesman Laurent de Segonzac, whose company supplied much of Iraq's telephone network in the 1980s.
''It could become a great market for everybody or it could become hell,'' said Ada De Filippo, a spokeswoman for Peugeot, the French automaker.
You can't ever get them to fight, until it's time to divvy up the quiche. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2003 12:46 PM
The conservatives and blog spots who were saying that Bush would cave and not take on Iraq are now wailing about Bush, Powell, Blair, etc letting France, Germany, Russia, etc into post-war Iraq. Let's hope they are misreading Bush yet again.
Posted by: AWW at April 5, 2003 10:38 PMI don't think there's much here to worry about. Once the role of France in supporting the Saddam regime becomes clear (that is, even more clear than it already is), the new Iraqi government, assuming it is allowed to make its own choices, should have very little trouble deciding where it stands vis a vis France.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at April 6, 2003 12:43 AMAWW:
Wait a second, didn't we have to talk you down off the roof a few times? :)
Oj - I was simply reporting what I sensed the mood of the blogsphere was. As I see it now the worry that Bush wouldn't take on Iraq has been replaced by worries that he will cave to the Europeans for the post-Iraq phase. I learned my lesson for the war not to doubt Bush's resolve.
Posted by: AWW at April 6, 2003 11:14 PM