Jim Hoagland argues in this Washington Post column that in the coming political campaign for re-election George W. Bush will not be able to count on European leaders to defer to his wishes and instead will face opposition from them.
To be effective, such political opposition from abroad will have to be subliminal and deniable. The all-out prewar battles at the United Nations will not be repeated. Instead, there will be subtle campaigns of political attrition.. . .
This is how attrition works: France and Russia promised not to veto the resolution, but then made it difficult for Powell to secure support. Germany, struggling to get back in Bush's good graces while maintaining its new alliance with France, was carefully unsupportive. And in a rare act of public advocacy, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan criticized Powell's effort, rather than acknowledge that his traumatized staff is reluctant to work in Iraq, where the United Nations is still distrusted by many for its past involvement in sanctions, weapons inspections and other programs.
The message from Annan's demoralized staff to the Bush administration was summed up by a senior U.N. official speaking to the Financial Times: "We wish you well, we hope you succeed, but we want to maintain our own integrity in case you don't."