Transatlantic Split

A Few Words Between Friends (washingtonpost.com):

Where Bush champions democracy, the Europeans want development. Where he cites universal values, they preach cross-cultural understanding. Where he demands change, they urge caution. So, on Iraq, they would prefer brokered power-sharing to ballot-box unpredictability. On Iran, they chide Bush for expressing solidarity with advocates of democracy, arguing that his rhetoric will only make the mullahs nervous and less willing to deal away their nuclear weapons program. To Schroeder, Russian President Vladimir Putin's authoritarianism is irrelevant: Russia has made 'considerable progress' and in any event 'security on our continent cannot be achieved without, and certainly not against, Russia.'

Very interesting observations, and ones that seem true to me. I prefer chaos and progress to stability and stagnation.