Stetsons and Berets.(Europe)(International politics; George W. Bush's trip to Europe)

COULD it be that those smiles really were genuine? President Bush's trip to Europe was expected to be the occasion for manufactured bonhomie, but actual good feeling seemed to break out. Partly it was Bush's native charm at work--he's not the fanatical cowboy of European caricature. Partly it was circumstances. He had the wind at his back from what seem to be brewing political and diplomatic successes, from the Iraqi elections to an opening for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to the U.S.-backed Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Bush pocketed increased EU help in training Iraqi forces and a strong joint statement with France deploring the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. As for the friendly atmospherics, usually they are quickly forgotten, but one never knows.

Yet a cloud hung over the proceedings, thanks to a pre-trip speech from German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that called for managing transatlantic relations through the EU rather than NATO. This is a brazen power-play and a shot at the heart of the Atlanticism of the last 50 years. The move would increase French and German influence by essentially cutting the U.S., the leader of NATO, out of European security policy. By putting the EU and NATO on a theoretically equal footing, it would hasten the day when the EU is indeed--as the French have long said they want--a rival power bloc to the United States. Finally, it would diminish the influence of Europe's (often pro-American) smaller states as their voices would be swallowed by the German- and French-dominated behemoth in Brussels, now armed with the ...