So before you resigned you were working out of the embassy in Athens, and part of your job was to deal with Greek diplomats, explain the American position, and try to calm fears. What was your take on the talking points you were working with?

The talking points were pretty pathetic. They may work at home, but they do not work with an audience of sophisticated people who have some experience with the world, who are profoundly nervous about the Middle East and terrorism, and would like to see some signs of intelligent life in American foreign policy.

What sort of reaction were you getting from your counterparts in Athens?

Well, I was profoundly struck by the fact that some of my most long-term, reliable colleagues who never indulged in America-bashing, who really shared our values pretty closely, said, "Well, I supported you in the last Gulf War, I even supported you in Kosovo, which we hated, but there is just no logic here and I cannot support you."

And what was I supposed to tell them? "Well, you're quite wrong; our motives are good"? "We are determined to promote security and disarmament" and stuff like that? They didn't believe it. I couldn't find arguments that were convincing.

There was a tactical argument that I used quite a bit and it's a very powerful argument because it's true. And that argument was that the only way you can prevent war with Saddam is by convincing him we are ready to go to war. That's a valid argument, but it's only valid if there is a corollary, which is, if Saddam does comply we aren't going to war. But it became absolutely clear that the worst thing that could happen from our point of view would be if Saddam did comply and we didn't have to go to war.

Because?

Because that wasn't an option that was palatable to this administration.

Did you get the sense there were U.S. diplomats in other capitals who also found the talking points on the war to be pathetic?

Oh, yeah.

And is that such a unique experience for diplomats?

It comes and goes. And there are issues where talking points are excellent and praiseworthy. And there are times when the people writing them are sort of shrill and preachy. A foreign service officer takes the points he's given and figures out a way to put them in a cultural and historical perspective that people can accept better. That's a fairly delicate job because you cannot soft-pedal the job too much. But you also have to know that certain pious phrases that sound good in Washington cause [people] to go hysterical in other places.

For instance, the White House argument that al-Qaida was connected with Saddam seemed to work very well at home. But it didn't have much effect on Chile or Mexico or other members of the Security Council.

Well, the point was that countries were saying, give us any piece of evidence [to support that claim] and we'll back you.

Were you surprised that the U.S. and Britain essentially spent six months at the U.N. and could not convince more than two Security Council members, Spain and Bulgaria, to join their war effort?

Right, we only convinced those two and for reasons that had nothing to do with our arguments. Bulgaria felt it owed a profound debt to the United States.

What for?

Basically for Bulgaria's entry into NATO, the United States' strong support for Bulgaria's joining the European Union, and for our economic assistance. They were repaying a debt.

Spain had its own conviction that it was very dangerous for Europe and the United States to stray too far away, for that relationship to be too badly poisoned. And it's helped that [Spanish Prime Minister] José Maria Aznar's conservative views were not too far from President Bush's.

Wasn't the assumption all along that once the United States put its full weight, and its prestige and its resources, behind the second U.N. proposal, and war became truly imminent, that the other countries would certainly come along?

Well, that's what we thought. But what the administration did not understand was that everything the administration had done over the past two years had this effect of cutting loose the ordinary, customary bounds of loyalty and solidarity that the Europeans had felt.

Things like?

Like the Kyoto [global warming] treaty, the International Criminal Court, trade issues. And a really big irritant was the Middle East peace process, where we essentially stalled the Europeans, saying, "Oh yes, we're going to do something." And then we kept finding a reason to make them wait.

At a certain point they decided we were not being straight with them. So when it came down to it, there was such a reservoir of mistrust built up that when we [tried to] lead, they refused to follow. And this is a real change.

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