Seven years ago, Europeans discovered the new American president, George W. Bush, during a summit organized in Goteborg, Sweden, and marked by anti-globalization demonstrations. Rejecting the Kyoto protocol on global warming, reappraising United States's participation in peacekeeping missions in different parts of the world, preparing to denounce the nuclear arms control treaties inherited from the 1970s, the new team in power in Washington aroused anxiety in Europe.

    The round of farewells that Mr. Bush is beginning Tuesday, June 10, in Slovenia - presently European Union president - comes to remind us that events have justified those fears. In spite of the solidarity Europeans demonstrated after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, the Bush administration chose to impose its vision of the "war against terrorism" on Europeans as well as its decision to make Iraq "the central front" of that war. In order to overcome the opposition expressed in Europe, and, at a governmental level, by France and Germany, it did not hesitate, to do everything within its power - and not without success - to divide the European Union.

    Strange Ally! Certainly, after the crisis provoked by the decision to invade Iraq, when it was apparent that the motives advanced for prosecuting that war - the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein supposedly possessed - were fallacious, and especially after the occupation by coalition forces had proved to be humanly and economically catastrophic, Washington made a point of reconciling with Europeans. The latter have allowed that no one would profit from the United States suddenly leaving Iraq. Moreover, the two sides have cooperated effectively in the struggle against Islamist networks and - less effectively - in undertaking the pacification of Afghanistan.

    The two candidates to succeed Mr. Bush, John McCain and Barack Obama, share the desire to turn the page on "Bushism." We must hope that the presidency of whoever wins the November 4th election will put an end to one of the bleakest periods in the relations between the United States and Europe.

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.