Pippen: They must have decided something by now.
Treebeard: Decided? No. We only just finished saying, "Good morning."
Merry: But it's night time already! We can't take forever!
Treebeard: Don't be hasty.
--From The Two Towers (Extended Edition)

Europe is not a hasty lot. Since 9/11, it seems to have had a very long "Entmoot" (period of excessive deliberation and indecision), but the failed negotiations with Iran seem to be giving it a long overdue dose of cold reality.

If America has learned a few lessons from Iraq, then certainly so has Europe. Indeed, Europe has been very badly served by its decision to oppose the war and sullenly watch from the sidelines.

Iraq proved to be very bitter medicine to swallow for someone like Jacque Chirac, the latest in a succession of French leaders who have sought to position France at the center of a united Europe. France has long envisioned a strong and vigorous Europe able to contend with the United States on the world stage and to shape the world according to its ideals and interests.

Iraq was America's mess, and America dealt with it largely alone, a revealing indicator of just who calls the shots in the world today. America, in the face of world opposition, makes entire regimes disappear. It reduces powerful dictators to cowering in the confines of filthy spider holes. The results of Iraq are America's doing. The message was clear: if you want to get business done on the international stage today, you don't run it through Paris or Brussels. You call Washington.

Today, Europe is being given a second chance. For the past two years, the Bush administration has watched smugly from the sidelines while the EU-3 -- France, Germany, and Britain -- spearheaded negotiations with Tehran over the Iranian nuclear program. The results have been, by all accounts, a foreign policy disaster unprecedented in recent times.

Iran is now Europe's mess. It is Europe's test. Will it step up to the plate as America did under President Bush? What kind of message would it send if Europe sat back impotently wringing its hands while Iran went nuclear or while Israel and America dealt with it unilaterally? Europe's claim to world leadership is on the line. Will it deliver? Or will it again demonstrate its own irrelevance?

Like Treebeard, Europe now finds itself forced to ponder the adoption of the very methods it repudiated only too recently. The allegedly stupid cowboy president from Texas has patiently allowed reality to mug Europe into supporting his vision, much like the clever Hobbit who calmly directed Treebeard into a grove of chopped-down trees outside of Isengard.

It seems likely there will be another year or two of diplomatic maneuvering over Iran as a matter of political expedience. In other words, Western leaders will leave the doors open in case Iran changes course, but diplomacy is now the sideshow. Western leaders will spend the interval laying the political groundwork and preparing their populations for what likely lies ahead: war.

The Entmoot is finally wrapping up. And this is why neo-conservative ideologues everywhere reacted to Europe's diplomatic failures by uncorking their champagne bottles and raising a glass to the Bush Doctrine and its new supporters -- the Europeans. Cheers.