DANIEL PIPES WRITES that the real debate is no longer over war:

For insiders, the main issue is the extent of U.S. ambition in the Arabic-speaking countries after that’s all done. This foreshadows the debate likely to dominate foreign-policy circles for decades: What should be America’s role in the world?

I think that French (not so much German) efforts to play spoiler here have as much to do with poisoning the well on this front as they do with the matter ostensibly at hand — though I agree with the increasing number of people in and out of the blogosphere who believe that the chief motivation may be covering up evidence of French (and German) collaboration with Saddam.