A more pro-American France--a surreal idea for many foreign-affairs practitioners in Washington--may not be that far off.

When President Bush speaks tomorrow in Krakow, Poland, he should give the whole of Europe this message: we, the United States, want a strong, coherent European Union.

Hereis thenew world of transatlantic relations, where the legitimate drive for European self-reliance mixes with old anti-Americanism and a new Euro-Gaullist spirit.

We should not assume that our common values will glue us together forever.

Poland has supported the U.S. in Iraq for 12 years now at considerable risk to its diplomats.

The brazen, repeated and very public intervention of high French government officials represents a major challenge to EU competition and merger rules.

America must now prove to the world that it is different from the dictatorships it is fighting against. That's becoming popular sentiment.

The important thing about France's presidential elections is not that the arch-chauvinist and hypernationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen will be the runoff's sacrificial lamb to Jacques Chirac.