France obstructed Bush and the War on Terror because PM Chirac was a bought and paid for shill for Saddam, who had bribed and banked rolled Chiracs entire political career to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
Chirac did serious damage to efforts to check the rise of Radical Islam. France is now reaping he whirl wind on account of Chiracs obstruction, but the rest of the world is suffering much worse than France because of Chirac.
The entire civilized world is in very real danger as the ISIS Jihad gains momentum and Lord help us all if it reaches critical mass and spreads world wide.
If the French are finally waking up to the dangers we face - well, better late than never and we need all the allies we can get to fight back. Surrender Monkey jokes aside, the French are pretty darn fine soldiers and their fliers are top notch.
Let's hope the rest of Europe follows suit.
The French have always believed they have a special connection with the Arabs. Is France really a part of NATO ?
My volunteer French bashing.
Throughout most of history, France has pursued nothing but its own narrow self interest. They just aren’t very good at it.
AND
Being French and overtly arrogant as a people and culture, they don’t waste time or energy putting sanctimonious moral lipstick on their foreign policy pigs.
Unlike the Anglo powers, the French do not kill strange little people in backwater locales under some pretense like “spreading rule of law”, or “building democracy”.
The French do it for oil, gas, gold, spice, minerals, ores, land and trade.....of course, their honor may be besmirched as a pretense....but there seems always much oil, gas, gold, spice, minerals, ores, land and trade that balms their wounded ego.
It is said, the French possess all the efficiency of the Greeks, the humility of the Germans, the level headed logic of the Spanish, and mix it with the military prowess of the Italians.
Of course, even with that, they should have no trouble with the Arabs. The Arabs are one of the few cultures that bathe less, posture more, and flee faster from a stand-up fight than even the modern French.
But that is just my opinion, and what do I know.