Analysis: Bush's Mesopotamian folly

PARIS, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- While the drums of war continue to resound and to gather momentum in Washington, Europeans, on the other hand, are moving to a very different beat.

And as President George W. Bush prepares for his Mesopotamian expedition, travelers from the United States to France are greeted with a short question, followed by just as short a statement.

The question: "Alors, c'est la guerre?" So, it's war? It's followed by the rhetorical statement: "Mais c'est de la folie!" -- But this is madness.

These two buzz words, "guerre" and "folie," are constantly heard in tandem around the city's cafes and restaurants. And just as the war effort, and support for an eventual attack on Iraq steadily gathers steam across the Atlantic, the Europeans, for their part, are shaking their heads in collective amazement and disbelief at what they see as growing U.S. arrogance in world politics.

People in France, as in much of Europe, cannot seem to grasp Bush's persistence on waging war on Iraq, nor the American president's continuing obsession with Saddam Hussein. An obsession many say is unfounded.

While France, as the rest of Europe, is geographically much closer to Iraq and Saddam's potential weapons of mass destruction than the United States, Europeans do not share the same concern over the imminent dangers that Bush keeps raising.

Still, Europeans, and France in particular, remain opposed to a unilateral American campaign to oust Saddam from power. The threats the Iraqi dictator may pose to the security of the West are seen here in a very different light than on the banks of the Potomac.

On Saturday, a protest march was organized in Paris by leftist political groups to voice their opposition to Bush's war plans. "No to the imperialist war against Iraq," read a banner in a French leftwing newspaper.

Even the usually neutral Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo took a rare stance against the war when Gunnar Berge, one of the members of the committee, said the decision to award former U.S. President Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize was "a kick in the leg to all other countries which have adopted the same position" (as the United States).

Only Britain, led by Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, remains supportive of the United States' hard line policy regarding Iraq.

But in France, almost anyone you talk to -- bankers, business executives, civil servants, taxi drivers, merchants, intellectuals or students -- all question the logic and timing of an American attack on Iraq.

The mood in the French capital today is a far cry from what it was a year ago following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when the highly-respected daily newspaper, Le Monde, ran a headline claiming "We are all Americans."

Today you would have a hard time finding someone here still supportive of the United States, and especially of Bush's Middle East policy.

In fact, in an editorial in its Sunday issue commenting on the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Carter, and in a swipe at Bush's policies, Le Monde wrote: "Jimmy Carter represents another America, one other than the official one. And it is this America that merits the Nobel Peace Prize.

The International Herald Tribune, which is edited in Paris, quoted Bill Graham, Canada's foreign minister as saying the award to Carter should be seen as "a very positive sign about how we would like to see the United States behave in world affairs."

It's a feeling greatly reflected in the rest of Europe.