Connecting a few more dots

France's fingerprints are all over the Oil-For-Food scandal that has enveloped the United Crooked Nations, and even tainted our northern neighbors in Canada severely.
Why would the untrustworthy quiche-and-escargot swallowers do that?
Well, it's all about the oil... and maybe more. It's all about a revived French Empire, one that includes the Arab world.
The latest National Review (for my Canadian friends, this is the magazine founded by the intellectual godfather of modern U.S. conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr.) contains a review of a book called "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis" by Bat Ye'or. Reviewer David Pryce-Jones, an NR senior editor who specializes in international affairs, highly recommends it.
According to the review, France has had dreams of an empire encompassing the Arab world for about two centuries now. But, beginning in the mid-1970s, the book says that something called the Euro-Arab Dialogue began to form... with the general idea of establishing France as the Arab world's best friend in the West. That explains why the French have kissed up to the murderous Yasser Arafat, Saddam Insane, Moammar Khadaffy Duck, and are even now kissing up to the murderous mullahs of Iran on that nation's nuclear dreams.
The question, as reviewer Pryce-Jones notes, is will France be the controller of the Euro-Arab axis (a stunningly adept choice of phrase, recalling the axis powers of World War II), or will the Arabs. And there are signs that the French -- and their friends in the Canadian power structure -- may have triggered something that they cannot control, but will instead be controlled by.
Ms. Ye'or is uniquely qualified to reflect on the Arab world. A native of Egypt, she lost her citizenship in the Suez War era of the 1950s and now lives in Switzerland. And she knows what it's like to live as a minority in a Muslim country.
She describes the conditions under which religious minorities must operate... in effect, according to the book review, they must admit their total inferiority. This practice, called "dhimmi," leads to a phrase she coined to describe the mindset -- "dhimmitude." In fact, that is the name of her Web site -- www.dhimmitude.com .
The review also notes how the French have done nothing but make concessions to the Arabs, who are not stupid negotiators. The French, on the other hand, are reflecting the concessionary nature that did not contain, but only emboldened, the likes of Hitler and Stalin.
The key to the future of France's dangerous dance with the Arab world lies in two factors: France's ridiculously low native birth rate and the high birth rate of its immigrants from the Arab world. Could there come a time when Frenchmen will be a minority in their own country? The demographic charts suggest so.
Dhimmitude = dimwit-tude?
The positive out of all this is, unlike our Canadian neighbors, we were wise enough not to give an admirer of France the keys to the top office in the land.
... Unless, of course, the Canadians in Oil-For-Food have figured out a way to outfox their French counterparts.
Then, heaven help us all.