Collateral Damage

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The tone and language of American diplomacy have not helped. Compare Donald Rumsfeld with James Baker, Bush the Elder's Secretary of State. Twelve years back, after Saddam's Kuwait grab, Baker crisscrossed the world in a painstaking (and successful) effort to harness a global coalition against the despot. Yet Rumsfeld, who dismissed France and Germany as "old Europe," seems to operate under the motto "I would rather lose a good friend than a good phrase." Power does not substitute for persuasion, and obliviousness shading off into hauteur does not exactly increase the supply of the willing and able.

But what if the end of alliance is the deeper truth? Then the new game will be the old game of nations. No more privileged relationships, just ever-changing combinations as in the 18th and 19th centuries. History whispers that this was bound to happen once the balance of power tilted as drastically as it did when the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving the last remaining superpower to rule the roost. But for America's unprecedented might to endure, it will have to be softened by trust and acceptance. Will Bush & Co. muster so much wisdom?

Tomorrow's historians will know the answer. In the meantime, Saddam Hussein has scored three long-distance victories just by sitting tight. As the intra-Western war continues, his prediction may yet come true. "No doubt, time is working for us," Saddam told the Egyptian weekly al-Usbou in November. "We have to buy some more time, and the American-British coalition will disintegrate."

Josef Joffe is editor of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit