What's missing [from the public posturing of the neocons and the right] -- intentionally, I think -- is any acknowledgement of how we got from a place where Le Monde could declare Nous sommes tous Américains, to a place where being seen as a U.S. ally has become a serious political health risk across most of Europe.

From day one of the war against Al Qaeda, the Bush administration has treated "old" Europe with a barely (if that) disguised contempt. It refused to give NATO a meaningful role in the war in Afghanistan -- even though such support was offered immediately, and unconditionally, in the aftermath of 9/11. Following the the fall of Kabul, it resisted efforts to expand and internationalize the peacekeeping force, and gave only tepid support to European efforts to strengthen the Karzai government, at the expense of the regional warlords with whom the Pentagon prefers to do business.

Then came the administration's decision to invade Iraq, taken with out any consultation with the Europeans whatsoever -- even though they had significant economic and strategic interests in Iraq (just as America does in the Saudi theocratic police state) and were far more exposed to the potential fallout (oil shocks, refugees, etc.) than the United States.

Then came Bush's imperative demands to the U.N. Security Council, and his absolute refusal to compromise -- even slightly -- on his timetable for the invasion, despite strong hints from the French and the Germans that they would be willing to vote for a war resolution if the administration would just give the U.N. inspectors a little more time in country, if only for appearances sake.

As Zbigniew Brzezinski put it in an interview with CNN shortly before the invasion:

We have in effect said to them, "Line up." We have treated them as if they were the Warsaw Pact. The United States issued orders, and they have to follow.

Then came the war, the inexplicable incompetence of the occupation, and Donald Rumsfeld's scramble to assemble his multinational (read: Eastern European) division, which generated a lot of unnecessary and unwelcome tension between old and new Europe -- at a time when both sides were trying to negotiate the tricky business of expanding the European Union.

Then came the Bush administration's repeated refusal to accept a U.N. resolution that would have diluted absolute U.S. control over Iraq -- until it became clear to everybody that the U.S. had very little control over anything in Iraq, at which point the administration came back demanding both a U.N. resolution (on its terms) and some hefty euro donations for Iraq's reconstruction.

Then came the fiasco of the U.N. bombing in Baghdad, the Najaf bombing, the Italian barracks bombing, followed by the utter futility of Operation Claws and Teeth (complete with Israeli-style home demolitions) -- until it was abundently clear to every sentient creature on the planet, and even some Americans, that the war in Iraq had turned into a full-fledged quagmire.

Did the administration fundamentally change its approach? Did it seek a reconciliation with the French and the Germans? Did it make it easier, politically, for Chirac and Shroeder to buck their own voters and step down into the Iraqi mud? No. Instead it sent the Jim Baker -- asshole king of the universe -- over to haggle some more money out of them.

And all this time, the conservative claque back home has kept up its steady drumbeat of hatred and childish insults -- as if the Europeans could be taunted into ignoring their own national interests and enlisting as buck privates in Shrub's Middle Eastern crusade.

And of course, now that the bottom has fallen out of the Coalition of the Willing, now that the Spanish electorate has finally risen up and said, "we want out of this clown posse," now that the rest of Bush's "new" Europe allies are scurrying for cover, the conservatives are cranking up the invective, in hopes it will drown out any hard questions about how this fiasco came to pass.

For the meat of his argument, the parallel between Bush's actions and Wilhelm's, read the rest here.