Bush's 'friendship' tour

George Bush's 'European month' is an attempt to mend fences over Iraq

George Bush's 'European month' is an attempt to mend fences over Iraq. Will it succeed, asks Conor O'Clery, North America Editor.

Three years ago in Paris a tired President George Bush mocked an American journalist for addressing President Jacques Chirac in French during a joint press conference. "Very good. The guy memorises four words and he plays like he's intercontinental," said Bush. "I'm impressed. Que Bueno! Now I'm literate in two languages."

This insult to French sensitivities did not go down well in France, where there had been demonstrations against the new American president. Bush was already fast becoming the most unpopular American president in a generation in Europe. Soon after coming to office in January 2001 he had snubbed world opinion by scrapping the ABM Treaty, abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and refusing to support a new international war crimes court.

For a brief period after 9/11 there was a surge of sympathy for America across the continent. In France, Le Monde declared "We are all Americans", and in Ireland business shut down for a day. France and other NATO countries co-operated with the US in Afghanistan. But it didn't last. With the drive to topple Saddam Hussein, relations between the US and Europe plummeted to their lowest point since the second World War. The action of France, backed by Germany and Russia, in blocking a US resolution in the security council authorising war unleashed a wave of anti-French sentiment in the US, egged on by administration officials. French wine was poured down the drain and a Congress canteen renamed French fries "freedom fries". Right-wing periodicals bandied about the term "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Asked if he would invite President Chirac to Crawford, Texas, Bush snapped, "I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch anytime soon".

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Germany too came in for criticism over Chancellor Helmut Schroeder's use of anti-Americanism to win an election. Donald Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany contemptuously as "Old Europe". The public scorn for "Old Europe" worked well for Bush when US forces stormed into Baghdad, fuelling a surge of patriotism that sent his approval ratings soaring. But after Bush's triumphal "Mission Accomplished" flight to an aircraft carrier, things went steadily downhill. The failure to control looting, the rise in casualties, heavy-handed American military tactics, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the insurgency and the forced change of course in bringing back the Ba'athists and dealing with former Saddam generals increased the war's unpopularity on both sides of the Atlantic. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal drained away any lingering sympathy in Europe.

Now Bush needs friends on the other side of the Atlantic. He has to win support from France, Germany and Russia at the security council for a resolution that will legitimise the political process in Iraq and enable America to establish an exit strategy. With the election five months away and John Kerry getting support for his promise to mend ties with Europe, Bush also has to "go intercontinental" and convince voters that he has not damaged America's relationship with its most important allies.

The mood in America is swinging away from the idea that going it alone is the best policy. So Bush is now embarked on a remarkable "European month" to mend fences. This weekend he is in Italy and France. On Monday he flies directly to Sea Island Georgia for the G8 summit of the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada (with Ireland representing the EU presidency). On June 25th he flies back across the Atlantic for the EU-US summit in Co Clare and from there he travels to Turkey for a NATO summit - and his fourth meeting in so many weeks with the French president.

Jacques Chirac is my friend, Bush told Paris Match in an interview this week. "I've never been angry at the French. France has been a long-time ally . . . he's welcome to come out here (to the Crawford ranch) and see some cows." Chirac, who entertains George and Laura Bush at the Elysée Palace this evening, responded that he too had never been angry with the US.

However vindicated European leaders may feel over events in Iraq, there is a consensus that it would be much more dangerous for Europe if America were to fail and leave the region totally destabilised. But while there is good cooperation on anti-terrorism across the Atlantic, the limits have been set on the European response to Iraq. Popular opinion is against sending fresh troops to help the US-led "multinational" force after June 30th. Bush won't even ask. And, however polite the summit encounters, "Old Europe" will not want to help Bush win re-election.

Fundamental differences over American unilateralism and the Middle East remain. The dynamism of history has also contributed to the deterioration in the transatlantic dialogue, according to Charles Kupchan, director of European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US. There are four "drivers" pushing the transatlantic relationship into troubled waters, he told a seminar on the four summits in Washington. One is the end of the Cold War, which made Europe less dependant on the US for security. Another is the evolution of the EU as a collective political body less willing to follow the American lead. A third is the generational change which has brought leaders with new attitudes.

And a fourth is the erosion of a bipartisan consensus in the United States on foreign policy dating back to the second World War, when President Roosevelt built a centrist coalition in Washington. A former US ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn, pointed out that the politicians who created the Marshall Plan, NATO and the United Nations are gone, and as the US became more warlike, struggling with the reality that it was "both invincible and invulnerable", Europe was integrating and focusing on minimising conflict.

Bush told reporters before leaving that he will try to persuade Europeans of "the need for us to understand that democracy can take hold in the Middle East". The message the American president wants to convey to European leaders is that his war against terrorism is morally equivalent with the struggle of the Allies against fascism in the second World War. Senior members of his cabinet have been pushing the line that his alliance with Tony Blair is akin to that between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt in the second World War, and that he will be seen in history as a leader of vision.

Bush "doesn't believe that that struggle is finished just because Europe is whole and free," said an administration official. "This is now a struggle against another kind of tyranny, one that would take certainly the Middle East, and maybe a lot of others, back into the dark ages." Bush will respond to demonstrators by reminding them that "the people in Baghdad can actually also go out into the street and protest", the official added.

But the demonstrations signify something else. According to Kupchan, younger Europeans may find their identity in opposition to the US, and are becoming not just anti-Atlanticism but anti-American. "And if that happens, I think we are in deep trouble."