President Bush should not be demonised, writes Gerard Baker
Last weekend, a couple of dozen miles and a large mood swing away from the stein-wielding, lederhosen-clad revellers of the Oktoberfest, a group of American and German scholars, policymakers and journalists gathered in the Bavarian countryside for yet another examination of the US-European relationship.
The conference, a joint venture between Atlantik-Brucke, a German think-tank, and the Atlanta-based Southern Center for International Studies, took place on the shores of Starnberger See, a long finger of placid water best known as the site where King Ludwig II is reputed to have drowned himself.
Though the simple bucolic grace of the location was invigorating enough, it was hard to lift an enshrouding gloom of the sort that must have driven poor old Ludwig to take his own life.
It is not just that the US and Germany remain on opposite sides of the Iraq equation, or that the transatlantic rift over fighting terrorism is as wide as ever. Nor is it simply that Europe's steadily ticking demographic time-bomb is filling Germans especially with deep foreboding about the old continent's relevance to the US and the wider world in the next half-century.
For this conferee the most troubling conclusion of the fascinating discussion - as well as others I have attended recently - is the vast gulf of misunderstanding that still separates the two sides.
It is only on trips to Europe that it is possible to see clearly the unique position the current American administration occupies in the demonology of many Europeans.
I was told, for example, over the course of the weekend by a senior German government official, in all seriousness, that the real reason President Bush had gone to war in Iraq was because he is a Christian fundamentalist who sees his destiny in messianic terms, smiting the enemies of God everywhere.
Another pundit, this time from the private sector, repeated the now familiar canard that it was southern Bible Belt piety that lay behind US policy towards Israel - almost half of Americans believe apparently that Ariel Sharon is simply fulfilling biblical prophecy and, while we're on the subject, let's not forget that Tony Blair has shown a disturbing commitment to religious convictions, too. By contrast, of course, Germany and France pursue a policy of enlightened rational secularism at all times.
It occurred to me as I listened to this that perhaps large numbers of Europeans honestly believe that President Bush gets down on his knees every day and seeks divine assistance on how to handle the next issue of 10-year Treasury bonds.
There is nothing new about this cliched view of America, but it is much more pernicious now. The most powerful illusion under which many Europeans seem to be labouring is the idea that if only President Bush would go away, the world would revert to the status quo ante, a mythical world of brotherly love and UN-mandated multilateralism.
As President Bush's Iraq-related domestic political troubles mount, many Europeans are starting to ponder excitedly the prospect of a return to that utopia. It is as though they expect that in his first few weeks in office, President Wesley Clark or Howard Dean will open the cells on Guantanamo Bay, send the blue helmets into Iraq, adopt Kyoto as the 28th amendment to the US constitution and prostrate himself in front of the Elysee Palace to beg for Jacques Chirac's forgiveness.
No one knows what the outcome of the next election will be, nor the direction of US policy. At present, the intensifying warfare over who is to blame for the problems in Iraq masks a fragile consensus that the US must slog it out in the Middle East for the time being. Depending on events in Iraq and the state of the economy at home, that consensus could buckle and policy could change with or without a change of administration.
But Europeans should not think that if it does change, it will necessarily shift in a cuddly direction. The most persuasive speech I heard at last weekend's conference was by retired Gen Zeb Bradford, a veteran of Nato debates for decades.
If the US fails in Iraq, or the American people simply get tired of the challenge there, he said, don't think it will usher in a new era of multilateralism. As the wise general put it, in American history the alternative to unilateralism is not necessarily multilateralism. It is at least as likely to be isolationism.
All the current domestic political tendencies point not in the direction of renewed US commitment to working with allies, but towards a reversion to the familiar US reluctance to work with anyone at all.
The only real threat America poses is not over-exertion of its influence around the world, but under-exertion. Europeans might find that outcome even less agreeable than the current one.