By Claude Salhani
United Press International

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The recent bickering over the Iraq crisis between the United States and "old Europe" could well have lasting effects on the former Cold War allies if left unchecked.

Of course, by now almost everyone who reads a newspaper, or watches television news, has become familiar with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's off-the cuff remarks that France and Germany represented old Europe, and that the U.S. was looking more towards the former communist eastern European bloc -- Romania, Bulgaria and Poland -- as stauncher allies.

As French President Jacques Chirac represented the main obstacle to President George W. Bush's war effort because of France's veto power in the United Nation's Security Council, much anti-French sentiment surfaced, both in the U.S. and in Great Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair remains Bush's most loyal ally in this debacle.

From inane bumper stickers calling for the bombing of France along with Iraq, to jokes circulating over the Internet about France's long history of military defeats, there was no scarcity of French-bashing.

While many French people have taken most of this in their usual debonair Gallic stride, it would appear, however, that many Americans have taken Bush's slogan, "You are either with us, or you are against us," to heart.

What is becoming frightening on this side of the Atlantic is that there seems to be no more middle ground. If you don't support the Bush administration's foreign policy on Iraq, then you are labeled a foe -- as France and Germany have been. Fifty years of Cold War friendship disappeared in a New York minute.

The solidarity portrayed by the vast majority of Europeans after the terrible terror attacks of Sept. 11 is history, or rather less than history. At least one tries to remember history. In this case, Europe's camaraderie was forgotten altogether.

Americans like to keep pointing out that they have saved Europe -- particularly France --in two World Wars. True. And for that, I have no doubt the Europeans -- particularly the French, are very grateful.

Years ago, when I was based in Europe, my wife and I used to go horse riding in Normandy over the sandy beaches and gentle hills where on D-Day, June 6, 1944, thousands of American GIs gave their lives in the battle to liberate Europe from the evils of fascism. After the ride, we would visit to the American War Cemetery in St. Laurent sur Mer, a place better known to most Americans as Omaha Beach, where many of these very young GIs were laid to rest amidst a forest of small white crosses.

The older generation of French people I would come across remembered with great emotion the ultimate sacrifice these Americans paid. I particularly remember one elderly Frenchman who came riding with me one afternoon, telling me how indebted France was to the United States for its freedom.

"Say what you like about Americans," said my riding companion as we trotted along the D-Day beaches, "but we owe them a lot. We can never forget that."

Franco-American relations were written in blood on those beaches and on the roads of Norman towns; St. Mere Eglise, Caen, Bayeaux, Colleville sur Mer and other parts of Nazi-occupied France. They are also written in the blood of La Fayette's Frenchmen who died fighting alongside Gen. George Washington, when 13 colonies were struggling for their independence.

What I find particularly interesting in this debate is that throughout this recent bout of cross-Atlantic sparring, the French are targeting America's leaders, particularly President Bush. There is, indeed, much resentment aimed at the way the administration's foreign policy is conducted, and its intention on waging war. There is no animosity directed against the American people. Regretfully, the same cannot be said about Americans, who seem to be venting their aversion to Chirac's Iraq policy at the French in general, and not just the leadership. One could well ask why?

Is it, as Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in his recently published essay, "Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order," that Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus?"

Food for thought.