One of the reasons why so many people around the world opposed an attack on Iraq beforehand was the fear that it would dangerously destabilize the Middle East. It is now patently obvious that the Middle East has not been destabilized. True, there is suspicion in the minds of ordinary Arabs about American intentions, but there was suspicion beforehand. So no change there.

However, there have been consequences — but not where expected. The place where the Iraq war has the greatest impact, strangely, has been Europe. The importance of the war is not that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein divided the Europeans into pro-war and anti-war camps and, in doing so, exposed the myth of a united EU foreign policy and the limitations of European action; Bosnia and Kosovo did that spectacularly. What this war has done is bring into the open a shift in the EU’s dynamic that has been taking place for several years but which until now was deliberately ignored, especially in France and Germany.

In the past, they were the driving force in the EU and its precursor, the EEC. If they decided a policy by themselves, it invariably became the EEC’s or EU’s policy. They had the political and the economic leverage to bring most of the rest of Europe into line. This was precisely the “old Europe” which the US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld so bitterly attacked before the Iraq war — an attack which infuriated France and Germany but which had such an electric effect on Europe’s understanding of itself.

Expansion and economic growth have moved Europe on. The Europe of the 15 EU members, soon to be 25, is too big, too complex for France and Germany to dominate. The new Europe has to operate by consensus, not remote control from Paris and Berlin. Such backroom management is no longer tenable — not only because the others now resent it but also because both states are increasingly looked down on as lame-duck economies. The EU’s most successful ones are now those of the UK, Spain, and Italy — coincidentally the principal three EU members who were most actively pro-war.

France and Germany took a stand on Iraq and lost, but lost so much more than the issue involved. Had they taken differing positions on Iraq or had they jointly supported the Americans and British, their position as EU superstars would not have been questioned.

Iraq has reforged Europe. It has opened European minds to the reality of the new EU that is evolving, a union of 25 members, where no cabal will be able to exert control. Whether or not the French and German governments can face that fact remains to be seen. The UN debate on ending Iraqi sanctions will be telling. So far, however, the signs indicate that both remain in denial. Their summit with Russia after the war says they still see themselves as super-Europeans, a cut above the rest; so does Germany’s contemptuous dismissal of Poland’s suggestion that it contribute to a Polish-led peacekeeping force in part of Iraq with its implicit horror at the idea of German troops ever being led by a Pole. An American, a Brit, yes; a Pole, never.