They're all pals with Bush now — just don't mention the war

So keenly anticipated is the President’s arrival in Brussels that his visit has already been hailed a wild success. Although differences remain with Europe’s leaders, they are ready to do business with him

WHEN Gerhard Schröder was re-elected German Chancellor in September 2002 he received the usual congratulatory telephone calls from fellow world leaders — with the notable exception of President Bush, who was disgusted that Herr Schröder had used America as a punchbag to turn around his faltering campaign. When Mr Bush was re-elected last November, Herr Schröder rang the White House to congratulate him. The problem this time was that Mr Bush talked and talked and talked.

Herr Schröder had a plane to catch. With the loquacious President showing no sign of shutting up, Herr Schröder had to make his apologies and leave.

Mr Bush heads to Europe next week with those incidents serving to remind how petulant transatlantic relations became during his first term, and what a difference a presidential election makes.

To say that both sides are ready to kiss and make up is like saying that they were mildly irritated with each other over Iraq. Indeed, so keenly awaited is Mr Bush’s arrival in Brussels tomorrow evening that his visit has already been hailed a wild success.

On his maiden presidential trip across the Atlantic in 2001 it was very different. His new friends on the world stage were far from friendly, hectoring this dimwit cowboy about his rejection of the Kyoto treaty and the dangers of dissolving the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to permit deployment of his “Son of Star Wars” programme.

Later, Mr Bush would entertain aides with impressions of European leaders speaking very, very slowly so that the ignorant Texan could keep up.

Four years on, European Union leaders have been falling over each other to secure time in front of Mr Bush.

Rival EU institutions have tried to pull rank to host the most impressive event during his time in Brussels. For Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, it has been beyond parody. “One day you will read in my memoirs the difficulty to find the right way to have a press conference or to put a knife and fork together without having disrespect between institutions,” he joked.

“I’m told that grandmothers in Ohio or Texas turn off instantly if they find that our press conference is in Council rather than in the Commission.”

Two elections explain the turnaround. Not even the most hostile of America’s European critics can still complain that the man elected with more votes than any other US president does not deserve the Oval Office. “I think there is a recognition that this President has got his mandate and speaks for a lot of Americans,” said John Bruton, the EU Ambassador in Washington and former Irish Prime Minister.

In other words, European leaders know that Mr Bush is the man with whom they must do business for the next four years, and they are ready to get on with it.

There is also the Iraq election, which has drawn much of the sting from the bitterness over the war.

Differences remain between Washington, Paris and Berlin over Iraq, but critics can no longer take the prewar position of Dominique de Villepin, France’s Foreign Minister at the time, when he declined to say which side he wanted to win.

It’s rather like the divorced couple who get back together for the sake of the kids. It can be awfully lonely out there trying to change the world on your own. Condoleezza Rice, the new US Secretary of State, played matchmaker during her ten-state, eight-day foreign trip this month. She managed this with warm words, a chic wardrobe and plentiful smiles, though she gave no real ground on any of the issues dividing the US and its European allies. But it is a measure of just how icy transatlantic relations had become that a little ray of sunshine was cause for wide-eyed celebration. “We are going through a phase of intense rapprochement,” Mr Bruton said. Mr Bush’s movements in Brussels, which include a visit to Nato headquarters, are laden with symbolism. With the elaborate and painstaking choreography alluded to by Mr Juncker, Mr Bush will also meet the EU’s 25 heads of government in a 90-minute session. Tony Blair will lead a brief discussion on the Middle East, one of the ten points of a bloated agenda.

Mr Bush will then cross the Rue de la Roi to visit the European Commission, the EU’s policy and administrative arm, where after meeting commissioners he will dine with Mr Juncker, José Manuel Barroso, the Commission President, and Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief.

No American President has gone so far to embrace the European project and Europhiles are consequently beside themselves with excitement. “Don’t underestimate its importance as a gesture,” Mr Bruton said. “It’s very important that he’s putting himself through all this. We know its hard, therefore we appreciate it all the more.”

It is as if Mr Bush has agreed to meet the slightly mad relatives who are usually locked upstairs when he comes to call.

After the transatlantic alliance fell apart at the UN Security Council in early 2003, the infamous US foreign policy maxim credited to Dr Rice was: “Forgive Russia, ignore Germany, punish France”.

Back in the bad old days of the first term, President Chirac certainly received his share of telephonic snubs from Mr Bush after blocking all lingering hope that the UN would give explicit blessing to war in Iraq. It was regarded in Washington as an act of treachery.

And yet who is Mr Bush honouring with a little private soirée on Monday evening at the American Ambassador’s residence in Brussels but Jacques himself.

Perhaps someone has finally told the White House that the way to win over the proud old Gaullist is not confrontation but flattery, a tactic that if it had been used by the often chippy Mr Bush in 2002 might even have avoided the diplomatic mess of 2003.

Germany, the next stop on Mr Bush’s trip, is clearly no longer being ignored. At Mainz, where his father enjoyed a boat trip down the Rhine with Helmut Kohl in 1989, Mr Bush will have lunch with Herr Schröder.

This time security chiefs have stopped all river traffic and sealed off the town centre. That is prudent. The town’s recent carnival included a huge float showing a papier mâché Bush baring his backside under a sign saying Open Again for Business.

There will be backslaps aplenty between the two leaders, but they will hardly be speaking the same language.

Mr Bush used the word “freedom” 27 times in his inauguration address, and 21 times in his State of the Union speech.

By contrast, Herr Schröder’s keynote speech to the international security conference in Munich last weekend was heavy on variations of “stability” and “stablilisation”, and completely free of “freedom”, a telling gulf between Mr Bush’s messianic second-term mission and Europeans who would prefer to let the dust settle from the first term.

From Mainz, Mr Bush travels to Slovakia where he will give a public address in Bratislava, only the third time he has spoken to ordinary people on his foreign travels, the other two being in Vilnius and Bucharest. It is no coincidence that they are three Eastern bloc cities where his “freedom” message resonates. There, too, he will meet President Putin. Four years ago, when they first met in Slovenia, Mr Bush famously looked into the former KGB man’s eyes to get “a sense of his soul”. Since then the Russian President has snubbed him on Iraq, cracked down on political freedoms in Russia and tried to meddle in Ukraine’s election. Next Saturday Russia will sign an agreement to sell nuclear fuel to the Iranian reactor that Mr Bush considers to be a serious threat to world security.

Mr Bush refused last night to rule out military action against Iran over the nuclear question. “You never want a president to say never, but military action is certainly not — is never — the President’s first choice,” Mr Bush said on Belgian television.

“I’m convinced again that if the Iranians hear us loud and clear and without any wavering, that they will make the rational decision,” he said in an another interview for France 3.

Depending on how much Mr Bush is prepared to criticise Mr Putin in public, the lesson of Mr Bush’s trip may be that he embraced France, stroked Germany but chided Russia.No one expects dramatic concessions from either side next week: there is not yet enough trust. Mr Bush’s visit will be heavy with theatrics, but that, according to Mr Bruton, should not be knocked.

“What is needed for US and EU relations to improve is that people feel comfortable with one another, that Europe feels comfortable with the President and that he feels comfortable with them,” he said. “The theatre is part of the reality.”

Our common interest in fighting the global Islamic terror is more important than who was right or wrong on the invasion of Iraq. Europe/Russia, and the US knows that. We should work together to finish with this Iraq hellhole. They will never love us regardless how many billions we are going to spend on their sorry ass country.

Bush, Putin, and NATO must redouble their intelligence gathering and cooperation to capture OBL, and stop the madrasas from graduating a new crop of hate-filled Islamists.

Later, Mr Bush would entertain aides with impressions of European leaders speaking very, very slowly so that the ignorant Texan could keep up.

I love this man. LOL

Four years on, European Union leaders have been falling over each other to secure time in front of Mr Bush.

LOL!! Now, let's see, who is making up with whom? Yeah, the threat facing us requires dealing with these people to the extent they are capable of grasping the danger, but I'll enjoy the small moments of groveling we are blessed with along the way. Still wouldn't turn my back on them.

“I think there is a recognition that this President has got his mandate and speaks for a lot of Americans,” said John Bruton, the EU Ambassador in Washington and former Irish Prime Minister.

Sherlock gets it. ;-) Ted Kennedy and N.Y.C. do not speak for me. This President does.

Condoleezza Rice, the new US Secretary of State, played matchmaker during her ten-state, eight-day foreign trip this month. She managed this with warm words, a chic wardrobe and plentiful smiles, though she gave no real ground on any of the issues dividing the US and its European allies.

I'm both amused and disgusted. Superficial elites. Charmed by her grace, face and artistic arts and pedigree. She's not stating a different position than the President's. Infact she and the President have been even more hardline since the election. Does it matter? No. They see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. It just proves they are worthless. Ideas are what manner, not the package. But for them to appreciate they need the acceptable package. A majority of Americans get this concept. Substance over Style. Europe saving certain alies like Poland, choose Style over Substance.

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