Taking U.S.-German Tie Personally

Unusual Warmth Between Bush and Merkel Seen Driving Recent Thaw

BERLIN -- Diplomats here are still buzzing over a relationship that almost nobody would have dared predict a few years ago. President Bush's current best friend in Europe, if not the world, may be a German: Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Bush and Merkel talk so much that German officials say they can scarcely keep track of their phone calls, video conferences and face-to-face meetings. They confer regularly about Iran, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Russia and the Middle East, as well as issues that Bush had not been so eager to talk about in the past, such as global warming, according to U.S. and German officials.

In her two years in office, Merkel has visited the White House four times and last month traveled to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex. Bush has made two trips to see the chancellor in Germany and is mulling an invitation to return next spring for the opening of a gleaming new U.S. Embassy in the heart of Berlin.

Part of the reason for this outreach is that both Germany and the United States have tried to move beyond the political wreckage caused by their split over the war in Iraq, which chilled bilateral relations to their lowest point since World War II. But just as important is the strong personal rapport that has developed between the former oilman from Texas and the physicist who grew up under communism in what was then East Germany.

"I think it's all personality-driven, myself," said John C. Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who is chairman of the financial services firm Lazard in Germany. "He really does like her, and I've heard this from people again and again and again."

There were no such feelings between Bush and Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder. According to U.S. officials, Schroeder had pledged in private in 2002 to support Bush as plans accelerated to use force against Iraq. But he later became a frequent public critic of Bush's policies.

High-level diplomatic contacts between Washington and Berlin all but dried up until Schroeder was voted out of office two years ago. In early 2003, Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, even reportedly pushed for a stated policy to "ignore Germany" because of its stance on Iraq.

Now Bush is so comfortable with his German counterpart that sometimes he goes overboard in expressing his enthusiasm. At a summit in St. Petersburg last year, Bush walked up to Merkel from behind and gave her an impromptu shoulder rub, a gesture that caused the chancellor to recoil in shock and was captured on video by a television camera. Germany's emergence as a favorite partner of the Bush administration preceded a broader shift in transatlantic relations in recent months.

France, which clashed with the U.S. government over Iraq and other issues during the presidency of Jacques Chirac, is also back in favor, a development aided by the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in May. During his short time in office, Sarkozy has already met with Bush three times: once in Germany, once at the White House and once at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Meanwhile, relations have cooled slightly with two European countries -- Britain and Poland -- that were key members of the U.S.-led force that invaded Iraq in 2003.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has kept his distance from Bush in public since taking over in June from Tony Blair, who had been ridiculed at home for his close ties to the White House. Brown recently tried to dispel concerns that he had gone too far in the other direction and had lost influence in Washington.

"I have no truck with anti-Americanism in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, and I believe that our ties with America -- founded on values we share -- constitute our most important bilateral relationship," Brown said in a foreign policy address last month.