Everyone's Hour

What do these signals indicate? (Hat tip: The Freerepublic)

Paul Martin to announce that Canada sending 30 soldiers to train Iraqis

Canada will contribute up to 30 soldiers to a NATO-led force that will help train the new Iraqi army, senior federal officials confirmed Friday. The formal announcement will be made when Prime Minister Paul Martin gathers with other leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting Tuesday in Brussels.

EU to Open Baghdad Training Office; Officials Hail Unprecedented Unity Over Iraq

The European Union agreed Monday to open an office in Baghdad to coordinate the training of Iraqi judges, prosecutors and prison guards in a step hailed as a sign of unprecedented unity over Iraq within the 25-nation bloc. ... "We are for the first time really united on Iraq," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "That without any doubt is going to be very important to the meetings we are going to have ... with President Bush."

Bush, Chirac Call for Withdrawal of Syrian Troops From Lebanon

U.S. President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac, meeting in Brussels before European Union and NATO summit talks tomorrow, called for Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon. "We urge full and immediate implementation" of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon, the two leaders said in a statement. "We have the same approach to the situation which is prevailing in Lebanon," Chirac said before a dinner with Bush. ...

Bush Suggests Chirac Is 'Good Cowboy' (Hat tip: The Vodkapundit)

Only months after he criticized countries "like France," President Bush was lavish in his praise of French President Jacques Chirac, one of the sharpest critics of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. "I'm looking for a good cowboy," Bush said Monday when a French reporter asked him whether relations had improved to the point where the U.S. president would be inviting Chirac to the U.S. president's ranch in Texas.

If there is something a little unseemly about the sudden cooperativeness of recently truculent friends, President Bush is making light of it. He has grown, in the best way, beyond the need to gloat. The dangers facing the world have not yet abated, but are starting to be recognized by allies who were hitherto too fearful or uncertain to look upon them. "This is not victory of a party or of any class." It is everyone's hour.