Remember the Real Enemies
The good news is that the allies can at least agree on a common threat, the most important glue in any alliance: an Iraq that descends further into anarchy and instability. An aide to French President Jacques Chirac flatly says if "things continue to go badly or go worse, it will have serious consequences for the entire Western world." But French officials fear that unless the security presence is recast to shed its occupation image, any foreign troops will be resisted. Spain has withdrawn its troops, and Poland may leave next year. But if—a big if—the coalition can manage to restore stability, the Europeans may then be prepared to help. Germany, which wants a seat on the U.N. Security Council, has launched a trial balloon about sending troops to help patrol U.N. elections penciled in for January. And European businesses will be more than willing to help rebuild the country once the U.N. is in charge.

Though Europe and the U.S. agree on the threat of anarchy in Iraq, they disagree on the response. The Europeans, in the words of the Chirac aide, want "America to reorient itself, the sooner the better" to hand real power to the Iraqis; the U.S. fears that doing so too fast could cause Iraq's interim government to break into competing power centers and fall apart. So agreeing to disagree over Iraq may be the best that can be achieved for now.

Change the Tone
Behind the scenes, cooperation among spies and cops to nab terrorist suspects has improved, and trade talks have shown a healthy give-and-take. But signs of accommodating Europe on fundamental questions are rare. For instance, Bush scarcely consulted Europe in April before upending decades of U.S. policy to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to hand over Gaza to the Palestinians without negotiation. To get things back on track, says a former senior British official, "Bush will have to eat some humble pie." One way would be to throw himself into a more obviously evenhanded push to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And if Bush really wanted to turn heads, he could declare that the U.S. will strictly honor the Geneva Conventions in its international network of prisons, and even recognize the International Criminal Court, where war crimes can be prosecuted and which 24 out of 25 E.U. countries have joined. Europe could contribute to a thaw by backing the U.N. resolution Washington is advancing to lay out lines of authority in Iraq after sovereignty is returned June 30.

While some of America's staunchest supporters find themselves wondering if the U.S. still stands for the values that made them fall in love with it 60 years ago, many Europeans remain willing to look for hopeful signs of rapprochement. Christoph Bertram, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, thinks "we now have an America that needs allies and is much more aware of it." The battle for their hearts and minds is far from over.

—With reporting by John F. Dickerson/Washington, James Graff/Paris, Jeff Israely/Rome, Andrew Purvis/Vienna and Charles P. Wallace/Berlin

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