Part 2:
To Some in Europe, the Major Problem Is Bush the Cowboy
(Page 2 of 2)
Mr. Bush's defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, gave voice to that thinking on Wednesday when he dismissed the mounting opposition in France and Germany, calling the two countries "old Europe," and all but declaring that in the Bush White House, they no longer mattered.
Mr. Rumsfeld's comments predictably raised a storm today in both Paris and Berlin, with a French cabinet minister responding by alluding to a vulgarity that one of Napoleon's generals used when the British sought his surrender at Waterloo.
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Mr. Bush has made no secret of ranking his allies by their fidelity to his missions. Britain remains at the center of his universe, with Prime Minister Tony Blair a reliable ally. After that comes Poland, the most gung-ho new member of NATO, whose president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said in an interview last week, "if it is President Bush's vision, it is mine."
Next in line is Spain, whose conservative prime minister, José María Aznar, "probably talks to Mr. Bush more frequently than any other European leader," a White House official reports. Then comes Australia, Italy — with a third conservative prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi — and Russia, led by a man with whom Mr. Bush seems to have bonded, President Vladimir V. Putin.
But Germany fell to the bottom of the list with last September's elections, when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder violated what Mr. Bush thought was a pledge and ran a virulently antiwar campaign.
France fell off this week, with its vow to organize a common European position against military action, at least for several months. Both countries "failed the Bush loyalty test," the senior aide noted.
Bush-bashing is old sport here. The president got off to a bad start with the Europeans when he declared the Kyoto environmental agreement on the environment "dead" — an undiplomatic wording that White House officials now cite as one of their biggest mistakes in Mr. Bush's first year in office. Then came the charges of unilateralism as Mr. Bush rejected American participation in the International Criminal Court and pulled the plug on the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
His handling of events after Sept. 11 won him new respect, but that has eroded now.
Even in Britain, Mr. Blair has been worn down by months of standing by Mr. Bush's side. In a political cartoon in The Observer newspaper last weekend, Mr. Bush was depicted as the Lone Ranger, replete with two pearl-handled revolvers, and Mr. Blair was drawn up as Tonto, his loyal Indian companion. When Mr. Blair expresses doubts about their mission, Mr. Bush says, "Shut up, Tonto, and cover my back."
Mr. Blair seems genuinely convinced that Iraq poses a threat to Britain, and several British officials said in interviews that it was critical not to show any public differences in tactics with Mr. Bush.
"You can't show any ankle at all in an operation like this," one official said, "because the inspections only work if the forces on Saddam's borders are a credible threat." He paused, and added, "You would think the Germans would understand that."
If members of Mr. Blair's government fear he is too close to Mr. Bush, some in Berlin fear Mr. Schröder has burned his bridges while Mr. Bush sits in the White House.
Mr. Schröder's advocates in Berlin remain convinced that without renouncing any German participation in an Iraq conflict, he was doomed to electoral defeat.
But White House officials say Mr. Schröder went back on a promise to Mr. Bush not to attack the American approach for political advantage — and that Mr. Bush will not forget it. They are unimpressed with his recent, quiet offer to give the United States use of German airspace and extra protection for American bases in Germany.
Germany, too, is unimpressed. "The likelihood of using force is deterring Saddam, but it is also deterring the allies," said Karsten D. Voigt, the coordinator for German-American cooperation in the country's foreign office.
Mr. Voigt is scornful of German colleagues who refuse to recognize that, in his view, the arms inspections in Iraq have only gotten this far because Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair have been willing to put forces on the Iraqi border. But using them, he says, is another thing.
"We know about containment," he said at breakfast the other day, gesturing in the direction of where the Berlin Wall once stood. "We lived with it for 50 years. It worked. And at the end, we got regime change."
Germany's moment to make this point is only a week away, when it takes over the chair of the Security Council for the month of February.
In France the rhetoric is less heated, but the suspicions of Mr. Bush's motives are no less real. French officials may have been playing to the home audience when they hinted that the country may use its veto power in the Security Council to prevent a second resolution, authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, to pass anytime soon.
But there is a clear fear here that Mr. Bush will respond to the French threat by avoiding such a vote altogether. One senior diplomat predicted the next few weeks "will be the defining moment on whether the United States decides to stay within the international system."
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