FOR FRANCE AND RUSSIA, IT’S ALL ABOUT OOIIILLL:

Under the scenarios being discussed, a U.S.-controlled government could conceivably run Iraq for as long as two years after the bombing stops. France and Russia, it seems, fear and loathe the prospect of the U.S. exerting such decision-making power in postwar Iraq because they could be cut out of the business opportunities that rise from the ruins of Baghdad. Meanwhile, the fate of their oil contracts, inked as they were with Saddam Hussein’s regime, would be in doubt.

The notion that doing deals with dictators is economically risky strikes me as a good one in general.