Ralph Peters:
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Presented with irrefutable evidence of the success of that incoherent cowboy in the White House, the brilliant minds of Europe are glummer than they've been since the Berlin Wall came down (that really hurt).
What intellectuals long for is an audience. And ever fewer people are paying attention. The workers and peasants have lost their faith in the central committee.
It's even getting tough to stage a decent anti-American protest. Despite the overblown media coverage, the "massive" rallies on the eve of Iraq's liberation were small compared to those of the glorious Cold War years when Moscow still provided a beacon of hope and American troops defended Jean-Paul Sartre's right to defend Comrade Stalin.
Last week, on the second anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the European Left called for mass demonstrations to protest the American "occupation" of the Middle East. The turn-out was pathetic.
My wife and I passed through London on demo day. The temperature was an unseasonable 70 degrees, and the sky was Texas blue — perfect weather for a protest.
Instead of attracting hundreds of thousands, the anti-freedom rally was a bust. Londoners were basking in the sun, filling the outdoor cafes around Covent Garden. The burning issue of the day was whether to have beer or wine at lunch.
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I don't recall a single protester calling for more democracy in the Middle East. Nobody protested Syria's occupation of Lebanon or the Damascus regime's program of assassinations and terror. Not a single earnest undergraduate demanded free elections in Iran. No one criticized that great human-rights advocate, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The protesters represented a forlorn hope that the new Middle East would fail. They found little sympathy among a population that had been promised an American defeat, only to find Washington winning again. There was more interest in the tale of the young British soldier who won a Victoria Cross in Iraq than there was in the demonstration.
Europeans are masters of instant amnesia. When they find themselves shamed by history, they simply move on. That's what they're doing now.
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