It was Marcel Proust who said 'The future is nothing more than the shadow the past throws before us..'
Discussion this evening in the pub.. with rumours flying rife concerning the health and welfare of Saddam.. of the whereabouts of the erstwhile ubiquitous Saeed al Sahhaf, the Information Minister.. Those who spend their evenings, after tending the sheep and such, reading history, remarked on the similarity between the tone of the Middle East now, and that we saw during the Suez Crisis, when France took up arms against Egypt.. also the wrangling that went on following the end of the First World War, when France, Germany, Britain, Italy, were all bargaining and drawing lines in the sand to delineate who had control of what.. history.. one hopes some of these diplomats have read at least some..
This time they say sagely, fingers beside the nose, they're using the 'legitimacy' of the UN to do their divisions, or they will do when George finally has had enough of rubbing their noses in their diplomatic scat.
What's that the French say.. 'plus que change.. plus que le meme chose..'
Or is it '..Merde..'