Yet seeking one will set off a fierce dogfight. France, which long demanded a second resolution, now says it might veto any attempt to pass one this soon. Germany, while it has no veto, takes over the chairmanship of the Council in February, and the government of Gerhard Schröder is committed to standing against war. His coalition partners in the Green Party can cause serious trouble for Schröder's thin majority if he bows to U.S. pressure. "We committed ourselves to say no," says Christian Ströbele, a stalwart Green pacifist who nearly brought down the government when Schröder sent troops to Afghanistan. "That can only mean that even on the Security Council we cannot consider giving our assent to a war."
The Bush team would be happy to have an explicit resolution if possible, but say they're ready to fight alone — with just a "coalition of the willing" — if the U.N. doesn't step up. They won't even try for a second vote unless they know they can win, since defeat could damage prospects of pulling together an ad hoc alliance.
For many Europeans, though, a U.N. war resolution addresses something more than merely Iraq: it's a means to maintain global order and international law. No one seriously doubts that Saddam's regime is indefensible, but Europeans want any such judgment to issue from the Security Council, not from Washington. They share a consensus that international agreement is a good way to order the jungle of world politics. Bush seems to regard international institutions as a nuisance and thinks Europe hides behind legalisms to pretend that brutal force isn't sometimes necessary in a messy world. But if Washington acts without a U.N. blessing, it sets an ominous precedent — if it's okay for the U.S. to use force whenever it chooses, then why can't other states claim the same privilege?
 INVADING IRAQ DISRUPTS THE WAR ON TERROR
Europeans worry the U.S. hasn't carefully thought the conflict through, but blithely put its faith in best-case assumptions. U.N. diplomats hear rumblings from Afghanistan that al-Qaeda will strike there when the U.S. strikes Iraq; the terrorists could just as easily retaliate in Europe or the U.S. People on the Continent think vital collaborators needed to stamp out the extremists will quit cooperating, especially in the Muslim countries that constitute the terror war's front line.
The U.S., advised Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, "must be careful not to take unilateral steps that might threaten the unity of the entire [anti]terrorism coalition." Would-be terrorists are all-too likely to embrace violence as a reaction to what they see as an unjust American war on Islam. At the least, Europeans think, a war with Iraq will absorb energy and resources that might otherwise be concentrated against al-Qaeda, which seems to them to pose a much more immediate danger.
While Washington proposes that the demise of Saddam will lead to a new era of democracy throughout the Middle East, Europeans think it could just as well spur chaos. Like German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, many predict "disastrous consequences for long-term regional stability." They worry about the impact if moderate Arab regimes are undermined, if Turkey is threatened by Kurdish separatism, if the West further alienates the peple of the Muslim world.
 COWBOY BUSH IS BACK AND HIS STYLE GRATES
When you poke under Europe's high-minded objections, you discover a lot of hostility toward Bush personally. Across the Atlantic, his style grates: Europeans are offended by his swagger, tough talk and invocations of God and evil. "People in Germany feel threatened by such wording," says Ludger Volmer, foreign-affairs spokesman for the Green Party.
Many Europeans have no patience with the argument that Bush is adopting a tough-guy posture to make sure Saddam knows he means business. The compliment is returned; it's no secret across the Atlantic that Bush's men frequently call their allies "Eurowimps." To the Administration's European critics, though, American foreign policy is confused and inconsistent and, in Iraq's case, motivated by Bush's animus toward Saddam Hussein. "Bush comes across here as someone who's incapable of articulating what he's going to do in a convincing manner," says François Heisbourg, director of the Strategic Research Foundation in Paris. "He came up with his 'axis of evil' thing, then North Korea happened and we see Bush explaining that North Korea isn't like Iraq. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that it doesn't add up."
 AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY IS TOO ARROGANT
Many Europeans complain not just about Bush's style, but about substance as well. They disagree with a broad range of Bush's policies, ranging from his opposition to the Kyoto treaty on global warming to his support of the death penalty to his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To many Europeans, this war looks like U.S. imperialism. And hypocrisy: they don't see why diplomacy can deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons program but not with Iraq's, or why U.N. resolutions should be enforced on Iraq but not on Israel. That makes even historic allies dig in their heels. Last fall's protracted struggle to negotiate U.N. Resolution 1441 was not just about Iraq, said a participating diplomat, but about U.S. power.
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