Paging Howard Dean - Steyn

Paging Howard Dean - Steyn weighs ina great piece on the disconnect between the US and Old Europe.

Money quote:

One of the greatest fictions of the interminable debate on Euro-American differences over Iraq is that it’s an argument about the means, not the end. If only Bush had been a little less Texan, less arrogant, less bullying, if only he’d been less impatient and willing to put in the hours, he could have brought the French and Germans round. After all, everyone agrees Saddam Hussein is a very bad man.

Not the French and Germans. There’s too much evidence suggesting the main reason they were unable to join the Bush side in this war is that they’d already signed on to the other team and they’d decided, in the sort of ghastly vernacular the cretinous Yanks would use, to dance with them what brung you. They’re being admirably consistent about this: at the recent Madrid conference France and Germany both refused to pony up one single euro to Iraqi reconstruction. It was never about the means, only the end.

Lesson: America and ‘Old Europe’ have different objectives in Iraq, and those objectives are incompatible.

You'll have to read - you got it, the whole thing.

In the meantime, David's Medienkritik - the essential German blog - links to this fascinating piece in the Economist.

Posted by Mitch at November 7, 2003 06:22 AM