Not long after German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's declaration that Germans and Americans must work together to win the peace in Iraq, George W. Bush addressed the United Nations. A savvy president would have seized the opportunity to mend fences with the world and our closest allies by offering the proverbial olive branch, as he asked all able nations for help in the rebuilding effort. But instead Bush told the world that the United States was right to go to war against Iraq and (by implication) everyone other than Great Britain and a few other coalition nations was wrong.

Now Bush owes an apology to the United Nations and, in particular, two of Americas closest allies: France and Germany. I am not optimistic that President Bush would ever admit to mistreating Americas allies, just as the president would never admit to a flawed policy in deciding to go to war without broad, international support. But if this administration were ever to apologize, an appropriate letter to France and Germany should look something like this:

Just as the French have had national politics polluted by the divisiveness of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front extreme right wing rhetoric so has the U.S. also suffered under the politics of Republicans. We share similar constitutional heritages with our founding father, Thomas Jefferson, a one-time ambassador to France and the leading proponent of French style democracy within the U.S. constitutional model. Our elections through redistricting processes have allowed our Republican party to take advantage of rural and working class districts' economic and social unrest to culminate this right-wing politic much as the Republikaner (Republican) party of Germany was able to do under Franz Schonhuber in the mid-eighties.

The U.S. Republican party is also a coalition of disparate groups including religious zealots some of which support Israel as one more required step in fulfilling a scriptural ingredient toward the end of the world. First they die and then everyone else in a policy no less fanatical than that found in radical Islam. The general message of our Republicans, like yours, is one of unification of the disaffected opposed to the unfamiliar, which includes immigrants that would threaten not only jobs, but now our very existence as possible members of terrorist cells.

As the French newspaper Le Monde thankfully expressed it after the tragedy of September 11, "We are all Americans." We appreciate President Jacques Chirac's declaration of solidarity with "we are entirely with the American people." We also thank the German people and for the gestures of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in calling the attacks "cowardly" and that "this battle that we are fighting along with our American friends is not yet won - neither in Afghanistan nor anywhere else in the world."

It was the blunder of this administration that was not popularly elected that branded the leaders of new Europe "old." They were wrong and we will work for their removal in the coming election so that we might once again be able to move forward in our shared and enlightened Western traditions with respect for the diversity of our views and cultures toward a better tomorrow for all people.

A letter such as this could go a long way toward mending fences with France and Germany. Unfortunately, given this administrations track record of never admitting mistakes or showing humility, I am not optimistic that our allies will ever receive such a letter.