I find that many in the pro-war camp are eager to criticize (or, more often, ridicule) France rather than trying to understand it. This frustrates me not because I have some liberal compulsion toward mutual understanding, but rather because we have to live with the French regardless of how irrationally they appear to be behaving. Besides, I guarantee that America’s behavior appears just as nonsensical to many outsiders as well. In seeking some rationale for France’s ongoing machinations in preventing war in Iraq, I return to my old friend Stratfor. One of their free newsletters from last week provides a plausible explanation for France’s foreign policy that’s sort of tangential to the “experience with the horrors of war” thing that I talked about last week.