He started it on June 9 with the annual EU-U.S. summit in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and will visit Germany, Italy, the Vatican, France, Britain, and Northern Ireland.
Even before his departure, administration insiders said that his visit will not produce "anything extraordinary." The president is not planning to make any major statements, except for a speech at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) summit in Paris on June 13.
But no one in Europe expected "anything extraordinary." The Old World understood that the president is merely going to say goodbye, because he has no time to do anything about the mess he has created in U.S.-European relations.
As one European diplomat put it, partings are the best times, only state-sponsored funerals (God forbid) or inaugurations are better. You can indulge in hypocrisy as much as you want at such events, because this is exactly what is expected. This statement is cynical but true.
The governments of all these countries, save the Vatican, belong to Europe's pro-Atlantic club. But there are differences between their pro-Atlantic attitudes - the quizzical Rome and Paris, the consanguine London, and the complex-ridden postwar Berlin. But now they are all united by one feeling, perceiving the U.S. president's upcoming departure as "good riddance," to quote the London-based Times. In the last few years, the Europeans have stopped understanding where Bush is coming from.
In principle, Europeans have always entertained mixed feelings toward their remote overseas cousins and considered them rather coarse. They like and dislike America in equal measure. Bush Jr. has managed to bring this ambivalence of European feelings to surprising extremes. He has returned it to the times about which British humorist, writer and essayist Max Beerbohm said: "Americans have a perfect right to exist. But I'd prefer they do not exercise that right at Oxford."
Regrettably for Bush, cognition comes through comparison. His last European visit calls for exclusively negative conclusions, as if on purpose. Officially, it is timed to the 60th anniversary of the postwar Marshall Plan, which helped Europe to recover after WWII. But it is taking place against the backdrop of two other major anniversaries. First, 20 years have passed since President Ronald Reagan's famous first visit to Moscow in May 1988. Speaking in the final months of his presidency at Moscow State University, Reagan said that "Americans seek always to make friends of old antagonists." For Ronnie, who had anti-communist virus in his veins, this was an incredible statement. Second, seven years have elapsed since Bush's first meeting with President Vladimir Putin on June 16, 2001, when Bush was able "to get a sense of his soul."
Instead of looking forward, Bush, much to the surprise of Europeans, is constantly looking back. For some reason, he compares current events to WWII, which they find inappropriate. When Barack Obama said that he would start talks with Iran, Cuba, and Hamas in Palestine, Bush likened these statements to Hitler's appeasement in Munich in 1939.
Although Europe criticizes Moscow for its "limping democracy," legal awkwardness and strange ideas about human rights, it still does not understand how Bush's America has worsened relations to such a degree with Putin's Russia, and why there are no signs of adjustment toward the country.
Russia does not have such cold relations with any European country, save the "new Europeans" from the former Soviet bloc. But they dislike Russia for past reasons and are slow to change.
It would be a mistake to think that Europeans have gotten so sick and tired of the United States that their trans-Atlantic link will be severed. Most likely, it will gradually converge at an entirely different point - a change, which was lost on President Bush. Europe is not tired of America, but of its president and of what one former British foreign secretary described as a complete lack of corresponding views on the struggle against international terrorism and the existing danger: "For all that transatlantic convergence on the threat of international terrorism, it doesn't pull us together like Soviet threat did. If only we had Brezhnev back."
But Bush will hear many kind words. The Europeans are very discreet, especially at farewells, funerals and inaugurations.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
