Hostility grows over US stance: “If Europeans realize that American primacy is something they have to live with, the reality of Iraq is forcing the Bush administration to climb down from its disdain of the United Nations and international cooperation. Thus sending the administration’s archduke of anti-United Nations sentiment, Vice President Cheney, into the lions’ den of Davos was a bold move. He put his best foot forward, but little in his speech to the forum convinced doubters that the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive force would end anytime soon, even as the Bush administration begged for UN help with Iraqi elections.

Nor did Cheney leave much hope that the United States was going to step up its efforts to secure a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.” —H.D.S. Greenway, Boston Globe op-ed