Here is a "fly-on-the-wall" account of the EU meeting this past weekend. Mssr. Chirac apparently had a less-than-pleasant time.

At Mr Annan's hawkish stance, Mr Chirac stood up and with Gallic passion began a defence of the French position.

Flinging his arms up and down, he declared that war was a terrible thing and that thousands of innocent people would lose their lives in a second Gulf war. "It is a question of life and death," he declared.

Then came the most dramatic point of the evening. Silvio Berlusconi, the diminutive Italian premier, eyeballed Mr Chirac and insisted: "I'm just as concerned about life and death as you are."

Here's hoping that the account is accurate, particularly as regards Kofi Annan's stand.

"Here's hoping that the account is accurate, particularly as regards Kofi Annan's stand."

I'll drink to that. (With water — but it's the thought that counts...)

Wow.

Italy is supremely fortunate to have Silvio Berlusconi, even if he did wimp out by apologizing for his statement that Western culture was superior to Middle Eastern / Muslim culture.

If Chirac represents the opinion of the French generally, they're more myopic and self-satisfied than any nation with claims to continental-power status can allow itself to be.

If Chirac is outside the mainstream of French opinion, why don't the French depose him? They have a parliamentary system that allows for quick changes in government, don't they?

And above all, what motivates Chirac, or France, to flip the bird to the United States and Great Britain, when the geopolitical price for doing so is likely to be ruinously high? What will American troops find in the ruins of Saddam Hussein's palaces that France does not want anyone to see?

> And above all, what motivates Chirac, or France, to flip the bird to the United States and Great Britain, when the geopolitical price for doing so is likely to be ruinously high?

Huh? Since when is the price likely to be high?

If there are negative consequences, it will be an exception to US behavior. In fact, opposition has often been rewarded.

Well, Andy, we've often rewarded actual enemies -- rebuilt their countries after pounding them into fine gravel -- but because we almost never get into a fray first, but rather after it's well under way, I don't think we have a record of rewarding allies that turn obstructionist or intransigent.

What I'm thinking of in regard to the cost to France and Germany of their opposition to our initiative is that we could easily withdraw billions of dollars from their economies. I'm in the weapons business, and when we sell France war materiel, we always contract back to a number of French companies for subassemblies and so forth. The Pentagon insists on it. The total cost of these hidden transfers often amounts to nearly the entire revenue for the item purchased. Basically, they get American weapons for free. That, I think, will come to an end.

When it comes to Germany, the army corps we have stationed there injects billions of dollars per year into their economy -- and they can ill afford to lose it. But President Bush has already indicated that he will reduce the American armed presence in Germany, practically at once and for good. There's little doubt of the reason.

So they're going to pay big time for their attitude toward our military initiative against Iraq. My question remains: What are they buying at so high a price?