Amir Taheri: Young Bush teaches 'old Europe' a lessonExcerpt:With Dubya's victory it would no longer be possible for the Hate-America international to pose as merely anti-Bush. Their claim that Bush and his gang of Likudniks had somehow hijacked the United States, has been swept away by American voters.
So, what is "old Europe" going to do? To start with not much of it is left. Schroeder has been trying hard to compensate for the crass opportunism he showed in 2003 over the liberation of Iraq.
He has sent more troops to Afghanistan to help relieve American forces there, and has assumed a major role in training Iraq's new security forces with help from other Nato allies.
The new Spanish government, too, has tried to modify its initial anti-American posture by sending troops to a number of places, including Haiti, to relieve the Americans.
Within the European Union only France, Belgium and Greece had been active on the anti-American front, at least until Tuesday's election. All three governments had made a strategic choice of systematically opposing Bush policies in the hope that a Kerry administration will adopt substantial parts of their foreign policies.
Yesterday, however, all three were making noises about working with the new Bush administration.
The second Bush administration should give them a chance to prove that they have changed course.
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Tuesday's message is clear: 9/11 changed America, and no one understands and represents that change better than George W. Bush.
The world will have four years in which to absorb that message.
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