Donald Rumsfeld went to Germany to discuss the Iraq situation, including NATO assistance to Turkey in the form of shipments of defensive military hardware, only to find himself less than welcome. That the NATO meeting took place near Munich is a bit ironical, albeit surely by accident. Munich is notably remembered as the site of the infamous 1938 treaty of appeasement signed by France and Great Britain, which emboldened Hitler in his plans to conquer Europe. Through reporters, Mr Rumsfeld learnt about a tentative Franco-German scheme to avoid a war by sending hundreds of inspectors under the protection of UN troops to make Iraq disarm. UN troops being what they are, US forces would stay in the region just in case Saddam Hussein "would not comply." It was also rumored that Mr de Villepin, French Minister for Foreign Affairs, would have requested that the Iraqi parliament enact a law forbidding the production of weapons of mass destruction---no kidding! When asked for details, Mr Joschka Fischer, German Minister for Foreign Affairs, declined, explaining that the plan was still under study and far from complete. The French refused to comment, which is understandable since the French seem to be the only ones able to comprehend the subtleties of their diplomacy. The US being kept out of this development would have been enough to tick off Mr Rumsfeld, but more grounds for aggravation soon followed. France, Germany, and Belgium announced that against the NATO charter they would block any defensive aide to Turkey. Then France, Germany, and Russia made a joint declaration that a war against Iraq could and had to be avoided by reinforcement of inspections. Earlier, France had abstained in the vote that gave Libya the presidency of the UN Human Rights Commission. Obviously, Germany and France are making every effort to oppose any US initiative, and for that they do not hesitate to undermine the relevance of both NATO and the UN Security Council.

Gerhard Schröder is in a very uncomfortable position these days. Elected in 1998 by a coalition of Social-Democrats (SPD), Reds, and Greens, and re-elected last year on an anti-US platform, he has not lived up to his campaign promises of putting the German economy back on track. Germany is in dire straits with a record budget deficit, an unemployment rate above 11%, and an economy driven into stagnation by regulations and social programs. The SPD, Mr Schröder's party, lost recent elections to the Christian Democrats (CDU) in Hessen and in the chancellor's own state of Lower Saxony. This does not bode well for the near future, in which political observers see for Mr Schröder a possible forced resignation. For now, polls rate his popularity at a paltry 25%.

His Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Fischer, a Red turned Green, enjoys a certain popularity in spite of his association with the far Left in the 1970s. His past would have been nearly overlooked if it had not been for the recent publication of press photographs of the time where a bearded Mr Fisher appears to have participated in street riots, including episodes involving Molotov cocktails. These pictures were brought to the attention of the media by Reds who did not like the minister's support of NATO in the intervention in the Balkans. That did not have too much effect on the Germans, who since the end of World War Two have become rather timid about making moral judgments. Part of Mr Fischer's appeal might be explained by one of his slogans, "Nie wieder Krieg, nie wieder Auschwitz!", which summarizes the idea that war and horrors like Auschwitz are inseparable. Of course, this is sophistry, but it touches a sensitive nerve and squares with a widespread German pacifist sentiment. Accordingly, he sees German foreign policy as the unconditional pursuit of peace, "Ausserpolitik ist Friedenspolitik."

Given Germany's current circumstances, Messrs Schröder and Fischer probably think that an about-face on Iraq would only antagonize the few supporters they still have on the Left and cause their political demise. They may be overly timorous, as they are not asked actually to take arms against Iraq, but to support the US with respect to UN Resolution 1441, a resolution that had been voted unanimously. But all in all, internal politics and French influence can explain the position of the German government, however shortsighted.

France's circumstances are somewhat different. Not so long ago, Mr Chirac in a speech solemnly invited the French military to get ready for war. The 180-degree turn that followed is not easily explained, but French politics are never easily explained. It is probable that Mr Chirac responded to his country's anti-American disposition and polls indicating that nearly 80% of the French opposed a war. It is also probable that his new stance had to do with the Franco-German alliance, with an intent to avoid an isolation of Germany and with the hope that other countries would follow the example of the Paris-Berlin Axis. That did not work too well, as both France and Germany have isolated themselves not only in the EU, but also in NATO. Or perhaps it worked very well according to a strategy elaborated by Messrs Chirac and de Villepin.

Any tentative explanation of French behavior must include considerations of political culture. In this regard, Curt Mudgeon Jr, a man of good sense and education, brought to my attention a quotation from Tocqueville's Recollections, which still describes France's political soul with uncanny accuracy:

The "man-of-letters' view of politics" is behind the many failed grand designs for which France is known, not only in politics but also in industry. Among recent examples of such doomed grand designs, the debacle of the Vivendi conglomerate and the dismal record of the Miterrand administration loom large. But France celebrated Jean-Marie Messier for his style, allure, and daring, and François Miterrand for his purportedly Machiavellian finesse---he was dubbed "Le Florentin." The French are suckers for homegrown con artists.

Alumni of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the school created in 1945 by De Gaulle to grind out high-level government elites, Messrs Chirac and de Villepin do not escape Tocqueville's model. Actually, their alma mater probably perpetuates the model, which the past fifty years of history have proved to work well with the electorate. Mr de Villepin is reputed to be audacious, a bit reckless, passionate, tough, and, in the words of his boss, very smart and a quick study. He also has a very high opinion of himself. In a book on Napoleon's return from Elba and the ensuing "Hundred Days," the foreign minister reflects on the role of "the great man" in history and waxes nostalgic about "the age of fire when politics and literature were one." All that is already enough to earn him oodles of French popular admiration. De Villepin, also an expert on Africa, has been Mr Chirac's political strategist, adviser, and attack dog for about a decade. He is credited for his employer's electoral victory of 1995, and also for blocking a judicial action against the president, who is accused of gross misuse of public funds during his tenure as mayor of Paris. But the quick study may not be as smart as he and his boss believe. In 1996, it is on his advice that Mr Chirac called for an unscheduled parliamentary election by which he lost a comfortable majority in the assembly and had to suffer five years of an opposition government headed by a socialist-cum-Trotskyist prime minister. Mr Chirac, however, still likes Mr de Villepin's allure and his appetite for power, and assigned him to his current post. This year, the expert on Africa was booted out of Abidjan, where he had been sent to negotiate a peace in the Ivory Coast civil war, a notable setback for France's grand African strategy. In European affairs, the isolation of France and Germany in the Security Council and NATO with consequences for the relevance of two of these organizations bears his imprint. Although Mr de Villepin is only Mr Chirac's hatchet man, he seems to exert a considerable influence on his boss. So, is it that Mr Chirac, egged on by his foreign minister, is deliberately burning his bridges to make a desperate show of French importance on the world scene? That would fit "a man-of-letters' view of politics" and a taste for the showy. In that context, the matter of Iraq is pertinent only as an opportunity of grandstand play against the US, unless the risk that a war could expose post-embargo French contributions to Saddam Hussein's arsenal is real. What is nonetheless real is the fear that substantial French investments in Iraqi oil concessions worth 20 billion to 40 billion dollars could be lost in a post-war order presided by Americans whom the French distrust. For that reason alone, Mr Chirac would want Saddam Hussein to stay in power.

The French stand may also have further purposes. France's leaders never cared much about the UN, which De Gaulle contemptuously used to call "le machin" ( "the thingummy"), except when it could serve their designs. In that perspective, little damage is done if a useless Security Council is driven into irrelevance. As to a post-Cold-War NATO, the French have no use for it and may actually welcome its demise. NATO constitutes an Anglo-American encroachment on continental Europe and an obstacle to a France-dominated EU and its evolution into an anti-US bloc. A break with these organizations would only be a deliberate repudiation of any association with the US.

Finally, French public mood plays a significant part in this situation. By and large, the French are fatalistic, averse to risk, afraid of responsibilities, pessimistic, and easily driven by fear. In short, their vision of the world is diametrically opposed to the American vision, which is a cause of widespread anti-Americanism. In the presence of danger, the French prefer accommodation to resistance, and appeasement to principle. They find unbearable the perspective of a war and subsequent uncertainties, which they like to frame in terms of morality and appurtenant empathy for potential "innocent victims"---the French tend to see themselves as innocent victims of history. In the current circumstances, the fear of pledging any support to the US in a war on Iraq is heightened by the presence in France of a Moslem tier (about 8% of the population), mostly from North Africa, bucking assimilation and prone to mischief. Public approval of Mr Chirac's position should therefore be no surprise.

In any case, France and Germany, once the most powerful nations in continental Europe, have put themselves in an untenable situation for short-sighted goals and unrealistic ambitions. They cannot make short shrift of the dependence of their fortunes on America's own. A return to normal relations with the US will certainly be easier for Germany, whose current stance is a product of transitory conditions of internal politics. France will have a longer and tougher road to travel.