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Originally Posted by TteFAboB
Bush is near Villepin's level, if the latter declared war on Iraq to free it from the Americans and re-install Saddam on power he could get his ratings back up. But don't be fooled, for the French to win he'd have to make a deal with Bush, and if Bush could jump out of Iraq he would also solve his problems and probably get his ratings up again too, so Bush would sign the deal.
Everybody wins.
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Except the French.
Recall at the beginning of the war that the only two countries Bush could armtwist (and these two didn't seem to need much arm twisting) into committing blood and treasure were Britain and Australia. Later a couple other countries briefly sent small numbers of troops (Poland for instance) but the rest of the "Coalition of the Willing" was that in little more than name only.
However, the UN wouldn't go along, there were mass protests around the world, the worldview held of Bush (and the image of the Americans who were tarnished by the association) sunk to that of Saddan Hussein (who at least was incapable of, let alone actively plotting, a war of aggression backed up with the world's largest inventory of WMD), and we witnessed the first ever, in history, alignment of historic arch enemies France-Russia-Germany.
Its been 3 years since now, and counting, with no end in sight and the worst fears of the day, as shouted by the rest of the world into America's deaf ear, have been realized: there were no WMD in Iraq, thus the rationale behind the war has proven false; its cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars with no end in sight; there is no "democracy" in Iraq, which rather hovers somewhere between civil war and an emergent Islamic theocracy; and we now have a new and fertile breeding ground for the next generation of battle hardened terorrists.
Sorry, nobody else is stupid enough to want any part of that mess. Even the American people have lost their appetite for it; despite being initially for it (though only after they were against it).
Reinstalling Saddam would change nothing as you can't put the Genie back into the bottle now.