Consequences

NZPundit on the US denying Iraq reconstruction contracts to the French etc:

While one can chuckle at menstrual teenage girls or boorish teenage boys conducting themselves as though actions had no consequences, to see heads of state in the same state of high delusion is truly baffling.

Indeed. And the consequences for Bush aren't exactly pleasant. The day after he released his blacklist, he had to get on the phone to the French, the Germans and Russians and beg them to write off Iraq's outstanding debt. Strangely, that went down like a lead balloon - as will the next request for these countries to send their soldiers to die in the place of Americans in Iraq.

Bush's move is spectacularly stupid. Yes, it's American money. Yes, they can take revenge if they want to. But the cost is that no country outside the US and its current clique of toadies has any stake in US success - and every reason to want them to fail. And that doesn't just go for Iraq, but for any future project the US is planning (such as, say, North Korea), until they decide to play nice.

But then, Bush is the proverbial "boorish teenage boy", so it's hardly surprising...