Eight European countries, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, all NATO members, just sided with the US on the question of Iraq in a letter published by the Wall Street Journal. Five are part of the European Union and three are slated to join next year. This is not good news for the recent Franco-German alliance, which aimed to put the two countries in a position of joint leadership in a growing EU and to reshape Europe into an effective anti-American bloc. To make things worse, Mr Chirac, who had threatened to use France's veto power in the UN Security Council against a US war on Iraq, may find himself in the position of a poker player whose bluff is about to be called.

When Secretary Rumsfeld stated that France and Germany represented an "Old Europe" out of step with the reality of a European Union expanding east, France took much umbrage. Mr Dominique de Villepin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented in a theatrical style typically French that wisdom came with age, and hinted that Europeans were wiser than Americans. As to Mr Chirac, he said that the "Old Europe" was actually building a new Europe promised to a bright future. A few days later, the French president made a call to Bashar el-Asad of Syria for some undisclosed purpose, and then declared two days ago that he intended to force a vote of the UN Security Council on a US military move against Iraq.

So much agitation on the other side of the Atlantic could just be dismissed as another manifestation of the anti-Americanism endemic to France, but there also could be much more to it, including serious foreign-policy miscalculations, panic, and attendant face-saving maneuvers.

Donald Rumsfeld is right in his interpretation of the Franco-German alliance. While Messrs Chirac and Schröder see the European Union primarily as a political entity, Eastern-European newcomers view it as a new market for their developing economies, and do not care much to be "ruled" by an Old-Europe alliance. In addition, the fresh memory of having been liberated from Soviet oppression by the Reagan doctrine, along with their subsequent membership in a NATO where America is the only power able to provide some protection, makes them more inclined than their neighbors to support the US in international affairs. Hence their show of independence in co-signing the letter of support to the US position with respect to Iraq. The letter itself, which was published without prior consultation with France and Germany, is a serious blow to Mr Chirac's goal to make France a major player in world politics by turning the EU into an anti-US bloc. And then, there is the semi-fiasco of the Treaty of Nice, which is to take effect in February this year and was intended to protect current EU members' status from the effects of new memberships. It so happens that the treaty will actually decrease the representation of the most populous countries in the European Parliament with the exception of Germany. It will also dilute to some extent the power of the current members of the European Council, the executive branch of the EU. In these circumstances, the Franco-German entente looks very much like a defensive move to preserve whatever can be preserved of the two countries' dominance within the EU, even at the cost of antagonizing the new members, and that does not bode well for the future of Europe.

Mr Chirac, however, has not given up the hope for France to play a role important in world affairs. To this end, instead of pursuing De Gaulle's failed dream of economic, military, and cultural grandeur, he has found a new interest in the UN, the very organization that he much disdained in the mid 1990s in a spat over France's nuclear tests. Faute de mieux, the UN is a forum where the French president, waving his veto power in the Security Council, can pose as an important player defending international law and claiming the moral support of a mythical "world community." That does not fool anybody, except fools, as the UN is year after year increasingly irrelevant. But Mr Chirac appears to see things differently. First, symbolically opposing the US on the world scene could boost a popularity fast declining in his own country---it worked for Gerhard Schröder in Germany, did it not?---where anti-Americanism is a fashionable sport and eight out of ten people are against a war. Forcing a vote on Iraq in the Security Council and lobbying elected members for assistance---e.g., the call to Syria and the convenient chumminess with Germany---were intended to make the pretense more credible. Second, Mr Chirac may well have believed that a French veto had some chance stop an American military action against Iraq, and this after making too much of the so-called conflict of views opposing the "dove" Colin Powell, partisan of UN approval, to the "hawks" G. W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. The US president's acquiescence to seeking UN support may have given the French the false impression that Colin Powell had prevailed, and that it was relatively safe to threaten a veto. That was a serious miscalculation, which must have played a part in Colin Powell's change of heart with the realization that the diplomatic way left no space for negotiations, given that the interpretation of the Security Council agreement on a resolution of disarmament of Iraq somehow had evolved into a policy of containment based on open-ended, spurious UN weapon inspections. Now that war is an almost certainty, Mr Chirac's temporizing and sandbagging have achieved three unintended ends. One is to have provided Saddam Hussein with the impression that he could continue his game of cat-and-mouse with the UN inspectors without immediate consequences. Another is the reversal of Colin Powell's position. The third one is a demonstration of France's impotence in world affairs.

All this is fine and good, but does not explain why the French seem to be working with such gusto against their own interests. Iraq is indebted to France, with which it had substantial business dealings. To collect that debt and to participate in the economy of a new Iraqi regime, it would certainly seem appropriate for Mr Chirac not to oppose an ineluctable war and not to antagonize the winning side. In the matter of assuaging his anti-American compatriots, a few speeches about being "morally" opposed to the war along with a bit of grandstanding at the Security Council would go a long way, and without the need to threaten a veto or to force a vote. So, why is France not taking this easier option? And why so much fuss about Iraq, when flattening Serbia raised no question?

A plausible answer is that Mr Chirac sees in the consequences of a war something more serious than the current rift between his country and the US. Before the Gulf War, France purveyed much industrial technology and hardware to Saddam Hussein, including a nuclear reactor and ancillary laboratories---the reactor was destroyed by an Israeli raid in 1981. Since the Gulf War, France has been eager to end the embargo against Iraq, supposedly for humanitarian motives. Given that it is not easy to enforce the said embargo, what if France had been making quiet shipments of forbidden goods to Iraq? And what if such goods were found and identified in the aftermath of a war? The consequences of such findings for Franco-American relations would be much more momentous than a threat of veto at the Security Council more easily excused by invoking French anti-American public opinion. And what if Germany were France's accomplice, which would give an additional dimension to the Franco-German alliance? German businessmen were recently tried for violating the embargo and found guilty.

There may be now about one chance in a billion that France by some action in the Security Council will prevent Saddam Hussein's demise. But the stakes are too high for Mr Chirac to miss that chance. So, three days from now, do not expect that any amount of persuasive evidence presented by Colin Powell to the Security Council will bring a mollified France to our side. But expect to see in a few months a France very busy wiping egg off her face.