Washington relief at Sarkozy win

Nicolas Sarkozy opposed the Iraq war as much as President Chirac's handling of the diplomacy. He wants America to announce a phased withdrawal. He also opposes Turkish membership of the EU, which Washington favours. --- Nevertheless, with Nicolas Sarkozy now in Paris, Angela Merkel in Berlin and soon, one assumes, Gordon Brown in London, the US feels that it has regained an axis of friendship in northern Europe.