French, German Officials Say They Won't Send Troops To Iraq Even if Kerry Wins... http://news.ft.com/cms/s/36048bf8-0ff7-1 1d9-ba62-00000e2511c8.html" title="http://news.ft.com/cms/s/36048bf8-0ff7-1 1d9-ba62-00000e2511c8.html" target="_blank"http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3604...

The "Financial Times" quotes both French and German officials as saying they won't change their hands off policies. From the lead paragraph:

"French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2."

Then this:

 "I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops, whoever becomes president," Gert Weisskirchen, member of parliament and foreign policy expert for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said in an interview...

... Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister, said last week that France, which has tense relations with interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, had no plans to send troops "either now or later"...

 ...A French government official said: "People don't expect that much would change under a Kerry administration, even if things can only get better. We do not anticipate a sudden honeymoon in the event Kerry replaces Bush...

 ...In a speech hammering Mr Bush for his decision to lead the US into Iraq, Mr Kerry said last week that in Afghanistan "I will lead our allies to share the burden." ...

...He continued: "the Bush administration would have you believe that when it comes to our allies, it won't make a difference who is president. They say the Europeans won't help us, no matter what. But I have news for President Bush: just because you can't do something, doesn't mean it can't be done.""

From the "International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/540813.html" title="http://www.iht.com/articles/540813.html" target="_blank"http://www.iht.com/articles/5...

" [L]ast week, just after Kerry's major speech on the war in which he insisted that the United States "must make Iraq the world's responsibility" and that others "should share the burden," [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schröder's sense of courtesy collided with reality and he drove a spike into the notion. He told reporters, "We won't send any German soldiers to Iraq, and that's where it's going to remain."

Clear? A faint irony slips in at this point. For many Europeans, the problem in making sense of Kerry's speech was not Schröder's rather predictable reply, but how much delusion or candor there was in the Democrat's campaign promise to enlist countries opposed to the war to bail out the United States militarily. Add to that the candidate's linked idea of leveraging a notional European military presence into a pullout by some American troops as early as next summer. It seemed enough to make Kerry's continental friends cringe."