To The Ramparts!

Holman Jenkins reports (WSJ link subscription required) on the latest foreign threat to American security disguised as commerce:

The debonair premier of France, Dominique de Villepin, has been gallantly resisting Italian energy designs even as Washington was fending off port managers in sheik's clothing. It all began when Enel, a big Italian power producer, was rumored to be planning a bid for French water and power company Suez. To forestall such an insult, Suez was rushed into a defensive merger with another big French company, Gaz de France, the country's main gas utility. Mr. Villepin called the merger an act of "patriotisme economique."

The problem is that every country has domestic constituencies that are equally happy to masquerade their interests behind flag waving. Together, Suez and GDF would control three important LNG terminals in Europe and the sole terminal in New England, which no longer can survive a cold snap without liquefied gas imports. And Suez has two more off-loading facilities on the drawing board, in Miami and Boston, in its campaign to cater to America's growing dependence on ship-borne natural gas deliveries.

Wait till Lou Dobbs gets ahold of the following: The combined company would overnight achieve a dominant position in the Atlantic LNG trade, and by virtue of the state's 70% ownership of GDF, it would be effectively controlled by the French government.

Sacre bleu! Can we really afford to turn over control of our critical LNG terminals to a foreign country that has, in recent years, actively opposed our national interests, sought to undermine our diplomatic initiatives at every turn, and may very well already have planted sleeper cells in our midst?

Ils ne passeront pas!