So, well done to the French on the election of Nicolas Sarkozy. The absence of a reflexive anti-American and anti-Israeli stance by France — especially in the U.N. — should make a significant difference in a variety of scenarios.

It’s also an opportunity to pause and remember circumstances in 2003. With all that has been written and said about the war in Iraq, it is often forgotten that the first preference of the Bush administration — and many others besides — was that the war should not take place. The credible threat of force should have been enough to convince Saddam Hussein to (a) cooperate to the fullest extent possible with the U.N. weapons inspectors or (b) skeddadle with his sons and the rest of his family to a long retirement in some sunny third country. It is arguable that the single most important factor in convincing Saddam that he should continue to hold out was the opposition expressed by two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to the use of force; i.e., France and Russia. The French administration campaigned aggressively in opposition to the U.S., Britain and the other allies. It is quite possible that had Saddam Hussein faced a truly united front at the U.N., that this war would not have taken place, and it is possible that his regime would have been removed without any invasion. And if France had not supported him, would Russia have remained the lone hold-out?

We can’t ever know how it would have turned out, but we can hope that the Sarkozy administration will be operating according to a different calculus.

And, despite Mark Steyn’s and others’ relentlessly gloomy forecasts, we can take heart that the ordinary people of France apparently recognize the dangers that they face, and we can pray that, indeed, we will always have Paris.

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