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The best and only way to achieve this would have been for France to support America all along the way and be rewarded in the end.

Right. Now I'm only talking through my hat, and have no hard evidence at all on which to base my line of inquiry. But, if we assume for the sake of argument that the caricature of "Bush the Oil Man" has some basis in reality, then I could imagine a scenario in which the US administration played France "b*lls to the wall" and never really left open an option for France to preserve a reasonable financial interest in Iraq, and thus no option to climb down gracefully from its obstructionist stance.

It would have been an extremely aggressive policy for the US to pursue, and one that could have forced France into where it stands today. For this reason alone I do not consider it very likely that this is what happened, but stranger things are found in history books.

Note that I am not claiming that US/UK greed brought us to this point, but I would like to see some smart investigative journalists dig into this possibility.

(I hope I don't get banned from FreeRepublic now.)

My scenario may be far-fetched, but I keep thinking there has to be an explanation for French actions that makes sense from a viewpoint of rational self-interest.

Neither Rhyme Nor Reason

It would have been an extremely aggressive policy for the US to pursue, and one that could have forced France into where it stands today. For this reason alone I do not consider it very likely that this is what happened, but stranger things are found in history books.

Well, it is a reasonable possibility. I've heard many french officials saying in private the following:

- We have absolutely no interest in going along with the US since they are hostile to our interests anyway, no matter what we say or do.

- We don't give a damn about destroying NATO, its members are just puppets of the US anyway.

- If there is a major crisis in the UN each time other members oppose the US, it just means that the UN resolutions cannot be anything else than administrative formalities whose only purposes are to validate USian policies. In this case, the UN is de facto already irrelevant, and we don't have much to lose if the US leaves. Plus, if that happens, the US will look like the evil unilateralists and we might even gain a maximum leverage in the UN.

Hi tictoc.
I still believe that the French and Germans are gambling right now for a greater cause.
Gamble # 1, Veto the vote, hoping that they can avert action in Iraq in order to maintain that cash cow together with Russia.
Gamble # 2, This one will make more sense. Collaborate with Germany, which was done already to show the prospective EU members that a United Europe is again a World power in order to entice them to adopt D'estaign's EU constitution. It will be a hard sell if it is maintained in it's present form. The Gamble is that either it will be adopted, or there will only be a handful of coutries left. In it's present form, a nations soveirnity will be taken away and appointed Buerocrats in brussels will determine everything from taxes to education, to defense, etc. That is the real power game in their mind. Add Russia, who will probably be granted admission into the Union. Together, they believe that it will offer a real opposition to the U.S. Infact, it will have the old Warsau pact nations together with Europe as a united front. A gamble, which may pay off.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

You're still here - "Oil for food" seems to be the answer.