ON MONDAY, in Brussels, Republican strategist Charles Black debated Kerry campaign adviser and fundraiser R. Scott Pastrick on the implications for Europe of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. As reported from Europe, Pastrick stated that a Kerry administration would be “culturally sensitive” to European concerns and that the candidate himself had a “natural tendency to march with Europe.” Of that point, we have no doubt.
But “march with Europe” in which direction? John Kerry has accused President Bush of living in a “fantasy world” on Iraq. But Kerry claimed in his recent, much-touted “plan” for Iraq that, if elected, he would reduce American troop levels in Iraq by replacing them with troops from France and Germany. Who lives in a “fantasy world”? If Kerry indeed knows anything about Europe, he knows there isn’t the smallest chance that these countries will provide troops, not even to their friend John Kerry. Anyone familiar with the state of German forces knows that Germany cannot and will not send troops to Iraq. The Germans are already hard pressed to keep a few thousand troops in Afghanistan. They are not going to deploy significant new numbers to Iraq even if they wanted to–which they emphatically don’t.
