America is becoming its own worst enemy,” says Anatole Kaletsky in The Times of London.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, the consensus in Britain and most of Europe could be described as morally sympathetic but pragmatically hostile…

Today, the reaction to Vice-President Cheney’s anti-Iraq mission is the mirror image of last year’s view about Afghanistan. The world is emotionally hostile to President Bush’s belligerent and overweening rhetoric. Even Washington’s best friends abroad resent American arrogance and are forced to acknowledge publicly, as Jack Straw did last month, that Mr Bush’s “axis of evil” campaign is motivated as much by domestic political calculations as by legitimate security concerns. Yet despite the emotional hostility and the public expressions of distaste, politicians all over the world are quietly offering Mr Bush practical reassurance…

Unfortunately for America and the world, the tacit support for US policy on Iraq today may prove every bit as misguided as were the anxieties about Afghanistan last year.