As the Edmonton sun reports here, Rumsfeld may have ticked off many in "old Europe" with his dismissive comments about French and German opposition to U.S. policy toward Iraq. But according to an online article by Richard Herzinger for Die Zeit, Rumsfeld's attack was "impertinent, but not false."

Herzinger argues that it is now incumbent on the Germans and French to attempt to address precisely the questions that the U.S. is attempting to address with its bellicose approach to Iraq: preventing the spread of WMD's in the region, and solving the problem of peace in the middle east without a radical rearrangement of the political structures in the entire region. Herzinger argues that the U.S. policy, which he dubs "democratic imperialism," is an attempt to solve these two problems -- problems for which European leaders "don't even have the beginning of a strategic approach."

Herzinger also calls to mind the uncomfortable fact that Rumsfeld is not bluffing when he counts on the support of countries in Eastern Europe. Looking to their recent past, they are likely to remember with pain Western European accomodation with communist conquest, especially now as Chirac and Schroeder fall over themselves to approach a Putin not loath to pursue war as an instrument of policy.

The French and Germans themselves will need to know if they should heed Herzinger's advice to view Rumsfeld's comments as brusque but troublingly accurate. On this side of the Atlantic, it seems to me that Herzinger's piece is on the money, as long as it is read a) in conjunction with Thomas Friedman's excellent commentary in today's NYTimes concerning the fundamental uncertainty that shrouds the future of potential post-war Iraq, and b) in conjunction with the Times's editorial cautioning against a unilateral race to war.

One thing is clear. We should greet neoconservative optimism concerning a postwar Iraq, for example, as naive silliness. I am shocked at how easily normally sensible people can throw around comparisons to midcentury Germany and Japan -- especially given our obvious inability to hold our attention on Afghanistan long enough to make sure that we devote enough resources to our last effort at forceful "regime change." And recall: this administration is headed by the man who used "nation building" as a sneer word during the 2000 campaign. I don't care how fundamental a change 9/11 supposedly worked on Bush's view of the world: old habits die hard.