. . . Irrelevance Abroad.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)

War On Terror: Once again, the U.S. and Europe are at loggerheads on foreign policy. Too bad, but this time we'll just have to go our own way.

Our allies in Europe have grown apoplectic over President Bush's use of the term "axis of evil" to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea. They've also scored Bush -- "the cowboy" as some tired Eurowags have dubbed him -- for the U.S.' supposed unilateralism in foreign affairs.

"Alliance partners are not satellites," sniffed German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a Green Party member.

The European Union's External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten warned against Washington's "unilateralist overdrive."

And, of course, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine weighed in, deriding U.S. foreign policy as "simplistic."

Yes, we're sure that through the world-weary eyes of some Europeans, America must look like a cowboy nation. And they're right in a sense: Faced with a threat, we'd rather act than talk. Rather than submit to terror and years of geopolitical blackmail, the U.S. will not sit by and do nothing.

Europe's elite underestimates the depth of the changes in America since Sept. 11 -- changes that do not bode well for our ties with the Continent. The elite's words of scorn don't sting so much as perplex. Didn't they see the planes slam into the towers?