Welcome to the Party, Pal...

I shouldn't be enjoying the hostage plight of the two French journalists, and when I think about it, I don't. Whatever the perfidity of Chirac's foreign policy, nobody deserves to have this done to them. It's not just desserts, it's not poetic satisfaction. It's just one more tiny little pool of hate that the Islamists have managed to bring into the world, one more group of people left feeling victimized and wounded. Now is the time to offer sympathy and an invitation to join our anti-terror reindeer games, even if such offer be rescinded.

It likely will be. There was talk of it being tied it to the "headscarves ban" in France, and that made sense to me. But reading today's Belmont Club made me think otherwise. It seems they're actually going to negotiate, and make someone else concede. So now really could be the time for Allawi to say, in the strictest possible terms, "Fuck off," or something more diplomatically suitable. And then the Elysee will call it "unacceptable", and then they will do...nothing.