CHRIS PATTEN is threatening E.U. sabotage of efforts to reconstruct Iraq after a war.

I think we should cooperate. No contracts relating to reconstruction should go to companies from countries that oppose the war. I wouldn’t want to subject them to a moral dilemma.

UPDATE: Luke Pingel emails:

Let the EU members for whom Mr. Patten speaks abstain from contributing to rebuilding Iraq. Just as long as they also promise to abstain from rebuilding Iraq’s civil and political society as well.

The Iraqis have endured enough without being saddled with France’s committment to the sacred troika of bureaucracy, intransigence, and arrogance.

Indeed.