PAUL JOHNSON offers five lessons from Iraq. The first: “France is not to be trusted at any time, on any issue. . . . French support always has to be bought.” He goes on to note:

What the Americans and British now have to decide is whether formal alliances that include France as a major partner are worth anything at all, or if they are an actual encumbrance in times of danger.

We also have to decide whether France should be allowed to remain as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, with veto power, or whether it should be replaced by a more suitable power, such as India. Linked to this is the question of whether France can be trusted as a nuclear power. The French have certainly sold nuclear technology to rogue states in the past, Iraq among them.

And that’s just in lesson one! I agree with Steven Den Beste that French obstructionism is likely motivated in no small part by the fear of what will come out after an American victory in Iraq. I also think that, if Saddam remains in power — even if he is “disarmed” — he will wind up buying more weapons, from the French.