>I guess another definition of Politics would be "telling people what we want them to do, but not really telling them why".
>
>Imo, the US would like as many countries as possible to join in because that way it won't look as bad to the rest of the world ("hey, it's not just us against iraq). They can say 1000 times that desert storm was a lot of countries agains irak, but in reality it was a 99.9% US effort.
>
>As Malcolm Rubel put it very succinctly at a recent users group meeting: Going to war without France would be like going hunting without an accordion.

LOL!

>If the French don't want to participate, that's their prerogative. The US ASKED them, when you ASK it means that the other party has the right to say yes or no and neither is good or bad.

I agree. The French have the right to not participate.

>It's also their prerogative to try to get support for their position as the US does for theirs, be it through diplomacy, coercion, or blackmail - it's all politics.

Yes, it's politics.