Are the French starting to realize the US is unwilling to give them any chance to backstab them again important role in the reconstruction of Iraq? Maybe not.

Actually, while Colin Powell is talking about a possible new UN resolution to allow some countries - though not France - to contribute troops, the French ambassador in the UN is gesticulating:

France, which led opposition to the war in the United Nations, responded by chiding the United States for failing to build a "genuine" international partnership.

Here we go again! Summer vacation's over in France. I bet the US missed French lecturing.

Is the word "genuine" a diplomatic way to say that countries such as the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Japan, Portugal, among others, just count for nothing if la France doesn't join the team?

Iraq's reconstruction requires "the joint mobilization of the entire international community," French Ambassador Michel Duclos said.
"But that is only possible if the Coalition Provisional Authority acknowledges they could not succeed alone," he said, using the name for the U.S.-led administration in Iraq.

Okay, this is when the gag really begins. They are not asked to help but Mr. Duclos insists Americans should, basically, fall on their knees and say they are sorry, they didn't succeed in Iraq and France was right... and is now needed. Mr. Duclos is even funnier than Mr. Levitte. The problem is it's hard to know which one seems the more serious without looking ridiculous.

Mr. Duclos said that coalition authorities should permit the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction, and that the coalition should cooperate more actively with noncoalition members.

Is it me or is Mr. Duclos almost requiring from the US to "cooperate" with the France-Germany-Russia axis?

And concerning the UN weapons inspectors... I thought Bush and Blair lied? Please guys, try to keep some coherence with your lies and propaganda.

"To share the burden and the responsibilities in a world of equal and sovereign nations also means sharing information and authority," Mr. Duclos said.

Charity begins at home.

Meanwhile, keep gesticulating. Even Colin Powell isn't listening anymore. This gesticulating will only help keep the US away from the UN, but maybe that's the only good thing France will carry out so far in this "crisis", as they like to call it here.

For some de Villepin blah-blah, you can check this CNN article too.

In an interview for Le Monde, de Villepin notably said: My conviction is that a security logic isn't the one that can enable Irak to be put on its feet again. One has to move from a logic of occupation to a political logic of re-establishment of the sovereignty [sic] of Iraq. It is urgent to put in place this new approach, that must constitute a salutary electric shock treatment".

I wonder who needs the electric shock treatment most. And a strait-jacket too.

Ah, that australian wine just keeps on looking better and better to me.

What are all of these different "logics" that Vealpen is always babbling about, the "logic of peace" and the "logic of war", etc... Is "logique" one of those "faux amis" which mean something different in the French than in English even though they seem identical? Can somebody who is fluently bi-lingual clue me in?
What would Descartes think of this?

BTW Australian wine is great! Rivals, maybe bests California. France has been living off the cachet of the tri-color for a long time. The cachet is now gone. Perrier used to be cool too. Nobody drinks it anymore.