Evidently it is to me that you refer by this violent and ignorant caricature. I do not claim, nor do I know of anyone (‘neocon’ or not) who claims, that France has been the enemy of the United States for centuries. What I do claim, and on strong evidence, is that the ostensible alliance between the two countries has masked an increasing and fundamental conflict in recent years, and that by the time Jacques Chirac made himself the vocal (though only verbal) defender of the Hussein regime, France was no more an ally of the U.S. than Russia or China. The U.S. has not claimed to be in alliance with either of those powers at any time since 1949, and it seems clear to me that its pretence of continued alliance with France is kept up chiefly to avoid the diplomatic consequences of an open rupture.

The idea that I believe in some kind of ‘Protocols of the Elders of Paris’, or find some sinister and age-old conspiracy in the acts of the various French governments since the American war of independence, is your own fabrication entirely.