AUSTIN BAY SAYS THAT MARK STEYN IS WRONG ABOUT EUROPE:

Great writing –absolutely brilliant writing– BUT, wrong conclusion, unless you’re like the French and you think “Europe” is another word for “France.” . . .
The Iraqi election smacked Monsiuer Chirac and Herr Schroeder. The Chirac-Schroeder axis smells defeat and their “western front against America” is folding. The Iraqi people’s Jan 30 electoral show of force sealed Chirac’s defeat. Even in the benighted Bastilles of Paris and Berlin, those ink-stained indicators of democracy in the line of fire – purple fingers – point the way to the future.Besides, Chirac and Schroeder’s “Greater Europe” is simply too divided, as I point out in my column this week.

Read the column, too. I certainly hope that he’s right.

UPDATE: Reader Kjell Hagen emails:

Many Americans discuss this. My input as a European (comment also left on Austin Bay´s comment section):

As a pro-US, pro-Iraqi liberation European, I would say both are right, but mostly Steyn. Yes, it was a defeat for Chiraq and Scroder. And, yes, Chiraq is corrupt and unloved even by the French. But, the French and a large part of Europe envy and resent the US and its power, just as much as Chiraq does. This will go on. Europe will never play together in any significant way militarily, with the US. And Europe will never build any worthwhile military capacity, given the political, economical and technological limits that Europe faces.

NATO´s big idea was to stop the Soviets. It worked, and it is finished. What is left is the girlfriend-like rhetoric, that Steyn points out. I think we will see an environment which is more like pre-WWI, with each larger power playing as best it can in its own interest, and with alliances shifting on a case-by-case basis. E.g., we see that in Lebanon, the US and France are allied to get the Syrians out.

Sigh. I would hope for more maturity from Europe, but there’s not a lot of history in support of such hopes.