The Associated Press today notes the “robust endorsement from European leaders for his tough approach to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.” Tough talk and intimations of touch action to follow from the US towards Iran and North Korea, and the Europeans are on board. That’s of interest.

Europeans have not shown much spine in recent years. We haven’t seen them standing up to brutal dictators, voracious kleptocrats, aspiring terror states, or internal religious militias imposing Sharia law on citizens and non-citizens alike.

Commentators like Christopher Hitchens and Mark Steyn have been warning of the signs of Europe’s imminent cultural and political demise. Yet, there are recent polls that suggest European populations are beginning to develop very negative opinions about (sometimes violent and often demanding) Muslims in their midst. There are suggestions that these same populations are beginning to rethink their infatuation with the Palestinian Authority (or at least when run by Hamas rather than Arafat’s Fatah). And there are increasing indications that the good people of Europe, if not their Governments, are beginning to view radical Islamic terrorism and its adherents as the brutally evil people the Bush Administration has consistently described them to be.

Look, the Europeans -- even the French – have been comparatively rock steady when it comes to Iran seeking to enter nuclear puberty, if they have been somewhat less the worried adult when it comes to North Korea. Still, like the Democrats here in the US, European Leaders continue to watch polls for guidance on how their foreign policy stands will play with their publics. I don’t have any empirical evidence, but merely suggest by way of hypothesis that these “robust endorsements” of our European partners seems a bit 11^th hour posturing. And I wouldn’t think there’s much evidence to suggest that they do so to curry favor with the US.

I think the potential palates of their curried attentions are much closer to home. Maybe they’re seeing something of an internal backlash against spineless policies, impotence in the face of direct threats, and even cultural blackmail and social intimidation. All well and good, whether Europe has the time to heal what ails it of all things militant Islamic, remains to be seen.

The political situation in the US, however, is symptomatic of somewhat different forces, where a predilection towards avoiding difficult decisions, and knee-jerk turns toward appeasement generate diverse political responses. What goes around, though, comes around, and it will be fascinating to watch the Democrats as we spin around to the beginning of our National Security dance, this time with Iran and North Korea.

(Funny that we are seeing a heating up of rhetoric and urgency –on both sides of the political divide – over the latter two legs of the supposedly mythic Axis of Evil. You’d think President Bush might have been prognostic of something when he coined the phrase for our most worrisome threats in his 2002 State of the Union Address to the Nation.)

As we walk down this road all over again, and the politics, foreign and domestic, runs its course, I can’t help but wonder.

Will the President’s political opponents say he lied about the threat? Will they say he exaggerated the threat? Will they say he acted unilaterally, without world consensus or support of a meaningful or real coalition?

Will they say they were misled into voting to approve tough action?