LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE, ENEMY:

France and Germany wondering if matters have gone too far (John Vinocur, March 19, 2003, International Herald Tribune)

In Berlin, a reporter talking to a German official heard that the Schroeder government initially believed Iraq was a one-issue crisis, narrowly confinable to disagreement on the military undertaking and the painful although surmountable problem (in the middle term) of Germany's nonparticipation.

But reacting in fear of isolation, the official suggested, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's willingness to subordinate Germany to a French view of confrontation with the United States on many wider fronts has brought the government to a position it now finds an awkward fit with Germany's long-term interests, and to a place outside the realm of the two men's anticipation when they ran for re-election on a pacifist platform last September.

In very less specific terms, this notion of things having gone too far appeared to suffuse remarks on Monday by Fischer that American policy was absolutely nonimperial in nature, that the United States was the irreplacable element of global and regional security, that there was no alternative to good trans-Atlantic relationships and that he well understood how the new East European membership of the European Union could have a "very different view" of their security than this or that EU founding member.

The Germans are merely doing their usual calisthentics--Feet!...Throat!...Feet!...Throat!...Feet!...Throat!...--but note the almost throw away nature of Mr. Vinocur's line about a wider French policy of confronting the U.S.. If it wouldn't smack of euthanasia it would be worth finally getting to go to war with them. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 19, 2003 7:09 PM