On his final trip to Europe as president, George Bush acknowledged that his Wild West lingo in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was overly bellicose:

“I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric,” Bush told the Wednesday edition of the Times of London, referring to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

He acknowledged that phrases like “bring them on” and “dead or alive” had given the impression he was “not a man of peace.”

Of course, the main objective of the European trip for this man of peace is to drum up European support for attacking Iran. The European Union plans to offer Iran a new package of political and economic incentives in return for giving up its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Bush left it to his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, to issue bellicose threats toward Iran masked in the language of diplomacy:

“We’re going to make this offer, and if the Iranian regime denies the Iranian people the benefit of the offer, then we’re going to have to turn up the pressure and I think everybody recognizes that.”

Europeans are watching the U.S. presidential campaign with interest. They are aware that Barack Obama’s policy toward Iran would emphasize diplomacy over threats of mass violence.

They are also aware that Republican John McCain would continue Bush’s policies and has summed up his approach on this issue by singing, “Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”