In Round 2, It's the Dollar vs. Euro

Jacques Chirac of France wants in. He called the president the other day to say so. Like the has-been don in "The Godfather," Chirac just wants to "wet his beak." A French contract to rewire Baghdad's phone system, perhaps. (After all, Alcatel of France built the old one). In the movie, Robert De Niro's response to a similar plea is to blow the old dude away.

George W. Bush isn't going to do that. I'm told he responded politely. Though a typical Gallic opportunist, Chirac may still have his uses, depending on how eager he really is to suck up. But Bush isn't going to rush to ask him--let alone the European Union or the United Nations--to join us in the back booth of post-Saddam Iraq. The thinking in and around the White House is: We're Boss now, and it's going to stay that way for a ...

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