The bully has met his match

Iraq seems to be showing Europe that America is simply a bully - a big one, to be sure, but still just a bully.

Philip H. Gordon, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said Europeans were deeply concerned when the Bush administration came into office in 2001 and took a number of unilateral steps, such as rejecting the Kyoto climate change treaty and pushing to abandon the antiballistic missile treaty.

"Europeans were worried we might be right and we did not need them," Gordon said. "They claimed to doubt we were so powerful but were worried we were. Now they see we are not."

He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Europe earlier this month and Bush's this week are viewed as "an American admission that allies are a little more necessary to us than we thought."

[...]

European nations have pressed ahead with negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, despite initial misgivings by the Bush administration. Yesterday, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley suggested Bush was mulling working with the Europeans to persuade Iran to give up the program.

On China, despite strong U.S. objections, European officials have made it clear they will lift an arms embargo imposed after the Tiananmen Square crackdown 15 years ago. European officials have also pressed ahead with setting up a European defense planning operation apart from NATO, rebuffed U.S. efforts to weaken the International Criminal Court and embraced the Kyoto treaty.
  WaPo article

The president and White House officials were all smiles when NATO officials announced a unanimous pledge to increase the number of trainers of Iraqi security forces and to donate more financially to the mission. U.S. officials hailed the contributions as a sign that the White House and European capitals are putting their differences over Iraq behind them.

"Every contribution matters, and every country ought to be proud of the fact that they're contributing to the world's newest democracy,'' Bush said during a news conference. "And I am grateful.''

But NATO's gift looks smaller when unwrapped; in fact, NATO and White House officials refused to provide details of how much countries will contribute, preferring to emphasize only the fact of agreement.

[...]

France will contribute one officer to the Iraq training mission -- in Brussels. He will be stationed at NATO headquarters "validating equipment provisions,'' the NATO official said.

Separate from NATO and European Union efforts, France has agreed to train 1,500 Iraqi military police officers in Qatar. ["Iraq hopes to train a homegrown security force of some 270,000 personnel."]

Germany has agreed to train Iraqi military police in the United Arab Emirates and contribute $652,000, according to an independent published summary that officials cited. Belgium is sending 10 driving instructors to the German-led mission in the United Arab Emirates.

[...]

"We're very pleased that we have not only unity in theory, but, on the question of Iraq, for the first time in three years, we now have unity of purpose,'' the senior administration official said.

Independent analysts aren't so sure.

"I would call that a stingy gesture of good will,'' said Charles Kupchan, director of Europe Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, an academic research center with offices in Washington.

John Hulsman, a Europe analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, said NATO's pledge "is better than nothing,'' but not by much.
  Knight Ridder article

BUSH:

"In our meeting earlier, I said, 'Vladimir, when we get in here, I think people are going to be very interested in this press conference for some reason. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because you're a leader of a great nation, and I'm fortunate enough to be one, too. But you can see we've drawn quite a crowd here. So I'm looking forward to answering your questions.'"
  LA Times article

I have a feeling that Vladimir doesn't fully appreciate the dufus' schtick.

"Vladimir's been a -- ever since September the 11th, he has clearly understood the stakes that we face. And every time we meet, he is -- we have an interesting and constructive strategy session about how to continue to protect our peoples from attack. He has -- he has confronted some serious attacks in his country. I know what that means, as a fellow leader. I know the strain. I know the agony. I know the sadness. I know the emotion that comes with seeing innocent people lose their lives. And we have shared that. I hope we never have to share it again, that common -- that common situation."

What a putz.

"We agreed that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon."

Last Friday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin pooh-poohed the U.S. claim that Iran seeks nuclear weapons, and Moscow agreed to move ahead with delivering the nuclear fuel for Tehran's reactors despite Washington's opposition. And in case you missed the message, Russia has also agreed to supply advanced surface-to-air missiles to Syria, the latest focus of U.S. ire in the Middle East — again in defiance of Washington's stated wishes.

It's hard to avoid the irony in Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's suggestion, in the wake of the fall of Baghdad, that the U.S. should “forgive Russia, ignore Germany and punish France” for opposing the war. On this trip, and Rice's preparatory one, it's more than clear that in fact they're trying hard to forgive France and Germany. And it's equally clear that Russia has no interest in U.S. “forgiveness” — President Putin is ignoring the Bush administration.

Nor is Putin alone in shrugging off U.S. calls to abandon trade deals that threaten Washington's strategic interests. The European Union is going ahead with its plans to lift the arms embargo imposed on China after Tiananmen Square, despite urgings by the Bush administration to avoid selling weapons to Beijing.

In their efforts to put a bright face on the administration's diminishing strategic influence, the Bush administration is accentuating the positive — the Europeans have agreed, they point out, to help train Iraqi security forces. Sure, they've agreed to train 1,000 Iraqis a year at a location outside of Iraq. To put that in perspective, the current U.S. goal is to train a further 200,000 Iraqis by October 1 — in other words, the NATO contribution will amount to 0.5 percent of the total. That's a little like the geopolitical equivalent of a Hallmark good-luck greeting card.

[...]

France won't even consent to U.S. pressure to make the relatively meaningless gesture of putting Hezbollah on a terrorist list.

[...]

As the old gangster movie adage goes, "You run this town only because people think you run this town."
  Time article (has embedded links)