“What was the French influence that you referred to re Turkey? I thought it was Turkish internal politics.”

Several of the US Diplomats stationed in Turkey at the time were put on administrative leave. It seems that the NSA’s watch on the EU banks and the flow of monies to and from the terrs also stumbled across payments from a French bank ( the same one involved in the ‘Oil for Fraud’ scam) to certain US Diplomats. Who just happened to be responsible for getting the Turks to approve stationing the 4ID in Turkey to use as the other half of a pincers movement. The US Army has an almost sexual fixation on pincer movements.
Anyway, the evidence was not clean enough for a court of law ( no warrant) so they couldn’t arrest the diplos and charge them with treason. So they (diplos) are on administrative leave pending review. Until the end of time, as the song says.
That is what the French had to do with Turkey and OIF.
The French army is just as amused by the US Armie’s carnal urges about pincer movements as everyone else is, so they had figured that by stopping the US pincer, they would stop the US Army. Which is what Saddam was paying them to do.
Two facts need to be placed in here somewhere. NOBODY can defeat the US Military on the battlefield. There are no invincible armies, navies or Air Forces. Mutually exclusive facts? I think not. The invincible army is defeated by politics or thru treachery.
Saddam tried the latter to induce the former. We see how that worked.
They all forgot about the US Marines, who like things like pincers, but don’t NEED them. The Marines WERE going to Baghdad. They were willing to let the Army tag along, but they DIDN’T NEED THEM.
The Iranians are trying the same thing, and hoping for better results. Religious fanatics CANNOT quit. If they could, they wouldn’t be fanatics. So the Mad Dog Mullahs are going to try and defeat the US politically, with as much treachery thrown in as they can get away with. I don’t thinnk they will be able to us the French as Saddam did. They do have the Russians and the Chi-Coms in their pocket, so they really don’t need the French.

The upcoming Olympics will have a huge affect on the GWoT. If it works out for the Chi-coms, then they will have a chance to move the middle kingdom into the world of nations, not in it’s rightful ( to them) place as the center of the universe, but withing reach. That will mean doing civilized things like supporting the GWoT. If it goes bad, it’s not impossible, although extremely unlikely that we will see another war states period in what was once China. The Terrs would like nothing better then a collapse of China. Far any despot willing to fish in troubled water, a warring states period would be a blessing.
Fortunately, terrorism cannot function in a police state. Unless of course, it’s the police state that is supporting the terrs.