Death of Europe? or Birth?

> Twenty years of economic expansion came to end on September 11, 2001...
>
> Since then, United States and Europe are fighting to death in a recessive
> economic world.
>
> Divide and rule is the strategy used by the Emperor to bring down his enemy.
>
> And it looks like it is working...
>
> More than oil, Iraq is the death of Europe...
An interesting and compelling argument. However, I think a case can 
be made that Iraq may well prove the *birth* of Europe, not its death.

From the end of WW II to the present, (western) Europe and the US 
have been as one on the big questions of war. The first crack in that 
was De Gaulle's France - the first to "go its own way", publicly, on 
military policy. But it stood alone. Now, for the first time, it is 
being publicly joined by others - in fact, by the *majority* of the 
EU.

Europe has always been divided, and the NATO consensus was always a 
consensus from weakness, not from strength - a matter of being ruled. 
The question of Iraq shows an emerging consensus from strength, a 
uniting against that rule. Such a consensus, built on the economic 
core of the EU (France, Germany, Benelux), may well prove the birth 
of Europe. ... If, perhaps, the death of NATO.

Is it not telling that the US would even *bother* going after the 
explicit support of European states - and then can only get those of 
weaker states?

Chris