Well of course they aren’t. Anyone who didn’t have his head stuck up The One’s posterior could’ve seen this coming. Dr. Henry Kissinger was asked about this in a February 2008 interview with Der Spiegel.

SPIEGEL: Isn’t German and European opposition to a greater military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq also a result of deep distrust of American power?

Kissinger: By this time next year, we will see the beginning of a new administration. We will then discover to what extent the Bush administration was the cause or the alibi for European-American disagreements. Right now, many Europeans hide behind the unpopularity of President Bush. And this administration made several mistakes in the beginning.

And now, after the election of President HopenChange, who closed Gitmo and is reaching out to the world, we get this:

MUNICH, Feb. 5 — European leaders cheered when Barack Obama was elected president in November. They cheered again when he proclaimed during his inaugural address that America was “ready to lead once more” in the world, and yet again when he pledged to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But when Obama sends his vice president and other top emissaries to an international security conference here this weekend to seek help with the war in Afghanistan, NATO allies are unlikely to be as enthusiastic, European defense officials and analysts said in interviews.

The Obama administration is expected to announce plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where the United States and its allies fear they are losing ground in the war against the Taliban. Although European leaders say they are eager to curry favor with the new U.S. president, they are proving just as reluctant to contribute more soldiers or money to the NATO-led operation as they were during President George W. Bush’s last years in the White House.

Gee, could that be because the Bush Administration was the excuse for a lack of further involvement, not the cause?

French Defense Minister Hervé Morin said last month that “there is no question, for now, of considering extra reinforcements” from Paris. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said his country would start drawing down its 1,770 troops in Afghanistan next year. German officials have also ruled out sending more soldiers beyond a parliamentary decision last year to expand the force to 4,500.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warns European leaders that the United States can’t be expected to give on Gitmo, climate change, and other European issues in exchange for nothing additional besides encouragement in the war against the Taliban. British leaders took the criticism a step further:

John Hutton, Britain’s defense secretary, last month chided unnamed European members of NATO for “freeloading on the back of U.S. military security” and said they had a “limited appetite” for the Afghanistan campaign.

“It isn’t good enough to always look to the U.S. for political, financial and military cover,” he said.

Britain has remained open to more troops in Afghanistan. Both German and Italian troops are limited to the relatively peaceful north and their nations have not permitted them to deploy to the south, where the Taliban is strong.

Via Glenn Reynolds.