Maureen Dowd on the arrogance of the Bushies

Mashing Our Monster Everyone thinks the Bush diplomacy on Iraq is a wreck.

It isn't. It's a success because it was never meant to succeed.

For the hawks, it's a succès d'estime. (If I may be so gauche as to use a French phrase in a city where federal employees are slapping stickers over the word "French" on packets of French dressing and on machines dispensing French vanilla yogurt at the Capitol. Seeing this made me long for the cold war, when you could eat your Russian dressing in peace and when Jackie Kennedy brought France to heel with élan, brains and charm, rather than scattershot embargos and inane suggestions in the capital L' Enfant planned that we disinter our war dead in France.)

Sure, the Bushies might be feeling a bit rattled right now, with the old international system and the North Atlantic alliance crashing down around their ears.

But you can't transfigure the world without ticking off the world.

It's not a simple task, carving new divisions in Europe, just as Europe is moving past the divisions that led to the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.