There are a bunch

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There are a bunch of right-wingers out there thumping their chests about how we’re right to stick it to the Europeans and make them pay a price for not supporting us — as though the issue here were justice for French multi-nationals (“Free Le Such-n-Such!”).

Guys, they don’t need our contracts.

The issue isn’t that this policy is unfair but that it’s stupid. As those notorious Francophiles Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan put in a column in the Standard yesterday, this policy is “stupid, and should be abandoned.”

Some folks seem to be under the misimpression that there’s some clever bargaining going on here. There’s not.

Think about it. The whole pot is about $20 billion. Let’s imagine the French and the Germans both got fabulously lucky and their companies managed to land contracts for a billion a piece. Does anyone think that Germany or France are going to write off billions of dollars in Iraqi loans or invite a backlash from their anti-Iraq war publics by sending in some troops all for the privilege of having the French or German versions of Halliburton or Bechtel make a few million dollars?

Of course, not.

The heart of the matter here is that for some folks there’s a certain failure to appreciate the situation we’re in.

Think back to your grade school science class.

We’re like the Saber-toothed Tiger sinking into the tar pit. And over on dry land are a few giraffes munching away on some leaves. And we’re taunting them with what terms we’re going to give them to buy into the good thing we’ve got going on.

Yes, an over-dramatic metaphor. But you get the idea.

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