Joining Forces

A fine, delicate, suggestive" diplomatic style was what the European Union's top foreign affairs officers wanted to bring to bear as they swung through South Asia and the Middle East last week to shore up the antiterrorist coalition. "It's a pure act of politics, like bringing flowers to a beautiful woman," said one official. "It's all about loving them to bits," said another. Cordial tones alone, it turned out, weren't enough last Thursday night, when the trio of Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, E.U. foreign affairs chief Javier Solana and E.U. External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten dined with Syria's hard-line Foreign...