perinova--It boils down to my untrusting nature. I'm more willing to bury the hatchet with someone I've had an outright fight with, rather than someone who has stabbed me in the back. The French signed on with the alliance for the first Gulf War, then went behind the alliance and violated sanctions put in place to try to enforce the peace treaty Iraq signed. Their violation of the sanctions emboldened Iraq, putting me and the rest of the military in increased danger. An argument can be made that by violating the sanctions France et al lead Iraq down the path resulting in the second Gulf War. After all if Iraq complied with all of the sanctions they agreed to, then everyone would have been out of the country a few years after the war.
