Probably the single most telling lines of the story.
The (international) socialists have Russia, France,and Germany's (socialist) leaders as the ONLY dominance against Bush worldwide: In fact, Germany and France the "rest of the world" that the democrat socialists are talking about when they complain about international opposition to US/UK efforts against Muslim terrorism.
The thing is, that even under a "conservative" German gouvernment, there will be no real German contribution in the US/UK efforts against Muslim terrorism, if you translate that with Iraq. Since the whole public in western Europe is completely against it, there is no chance for the new German administration (who consists by half of social democrats) to join into the line of the supporters of the Iraq war.
The main problem with the Iraq war and the European public is, that the people on the old continent are absolutely not convinced about the honest objectives of this war. This is not a German (or French) phenomenon soley. Those gouvernemts who participated (like Italy) will probably have to pay a bitter price in the coming elections (the UK are a exception, because there is no eligible alternative to Tony Blair in the moment). If the war would have a different odor, there would be much more backup. Schroeders dumb and silly propaganda about Halliburton ("No blood for oil") spoiled all possibilities.