One theory of French thinking holds that they are being such a pain because they want us to stomp off and attack Iraq without going to the Security Council, thus relieving them of making the difficult choice between us and Germany. We should make them choose. Also, those of us who said a long time ago—in opposition to the Chuck Hagels of the world–that going back to the U.N. would only kick-the-can-down-the-road over disagreements about the war have been proven right with a vengeance. In retrospect, the best policy would have been to attack as soon as possible. The delay has only increased tensions with skeptical allies and allowed the global anti-war movement time to build. Most of those countries who were going to with us probably would have been with us anyway. And right now the France-German Europeans would probably be complaining about the U.S. not doing enough to re-build Iraq, rather than busying themselves with tearing up the Western alliance.