U.S.-German relations: Back to normal?

[Kellanved]

It is not often that world leaders are bluntly contradicted in public by other world leaders, but that is what happened in Munich a bit over a year ago, in what came to be an almost epochal event in Germany, when the U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, had a sort of clash of civilizations over the war in Iraq. At the time, Rumsfeld was at the height of his European unpopularity, thanks to his statements likening Germany to Libya and Cuba in their nonsupport of what was then the imminent Iraq war and his declaration that "Old Europe" was irrelevant. As Rumsfeld addressed the 2003 session of the annual Munich Security Conference, demonstrators led by Munich's mayor gathered on the snowy streets of the city.
...

Schröder not only spoke out strongly against the war but also was the first major European leader to do so, at a time when President Jacques Chirac of France seemed uncertain. Then he went further than Chirac ever did, saying that Germany would oppose a war even if the United Nations sanctioned military action. It was Schröder, not Chirac or President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who crystallized what came to be called the Moscow-Berlin-Paris antiwar axis, and it was this tripartite opposition that made Security Council approval of the American plan well-nigh impossible.
...

"The deans of the Social Democratic Party are not anti-American, but none of them are full-blooded, heart-and-soul Atlanticists," said Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin. "They're at least as interested in the EU as they are in an alliance with the United States." More generally, Gedmin said, "German foreign policy in the next 10 years will look more French. The Germans will still be allies. They'll still be members of the alliance. But Germany will be far from the old, loyal, helpful junior partner it was under Kohl."
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http://www.iht.com/articles/518143.htm

[glarius]

1. I wonder if the German people are just hoping to have a "workable"

relationship with Bush, until hopefully Kerry is elected?...That is what we in Canada are counting on...Our new P.M. Paul Martin just met with the Chimp in Washington, and smoothed the waters with Bush...This is necessary when we have such a huge trading relationship with the U.S.A....Former P.M Chretien was on Bush's shit list, because he wouldn't commit Canada to the Iraq war....I suspect the whole world is kind of holding it's breath, hoping for a fresh start with Kerry!