One of Ours

...Europeans, remembering centuries of experience in stomping out separatists, anarchists and fanatics, will now go their own way, without guidance from Paul Wolfowitz. French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, looking like two cats who shared a canary, held a joint press conference in Paris on Tuesday touting their own approach to fighting terrorism; there they offered words of welcome to incoming Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, inducting him into their non-American -- maybe anti-American -- alliance..Western Europeans have concluded that stirring hornets nests in faraway places is not the way to keep from being stung...

...the most serious consequence of appeasement-accusing is the assumption that goes with it: That counterterrorism strategy and conventional war strategy are one and the same...

...Those who doubt the master plan must be silenced with charges of "dishonor" and, of course, the A-word -- "appeasement."..
...Bush's war in Iraq was bad strategy, if the enemy is al-Qaida. And the search for a better strategy isn't cowardice, appeasement or surrender. Maybe Bush-bamboozled Americans will figure that out when bin Laden is finally nailed and nothing changes.