Europe Retreats From America's Quagmire by Christopher Deliso

To the outside, antiwar-minded observer, the fabulous "Coalition of the Willing" may well seem to be crumbling for all the right reasons; however, while the effect may in the end be the same, it is not as if the governments involved have suddenly been hit by the divine light and espoused noninterventionism. Rather, what is happening now is the unremarkable unfolding of an alliance that was never meant to be permanent and for which real individual influence was never envisioned. Coalition "partners" were little more than set pieces wheeled out to create an impression of legitimacy for America's war.