Chirac is a politician, so he must back-pedal now. The French made it personal, I heard an interview with a French official who sneered that Americans didn't understand the world. I hated that.

This is the problem with understanding. We didn't made it personal, and I don't see how Chirac is back-pedaling. I still don't understand why we are the main target of American's attention, since our position has been more targeted toward a compromise than the German's or the Russian's one. As for a French official (which one? There are at least 30000 French democraticly elected...) saying that "Americans didn't understand the world", well, it's not my opinion, but there is free speech here as well.