The message could not have been clearer. "I don't want him in the White House."

The speaker at a senior staff meeting was Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's National Security Adviser, who, as always, closely reflected his views. The "him" was the Foreign Minister of one of America's closest allies, Joschka Fischer from Germany. He was allowed a brief meeting with Colin Powell at the State Department, but nowhere near the President.

After the attacks by SPD leaders on America and Mr Bush himself during the German election campaign, the President is in no mood to forgive, or forget.

Ms Rice's words were reported to me as a stark example not just of the frigid state of US-German relations, but also of more general American disillusionment with Europe. Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar of Spain are exempt from these criticisms. But this is as much a danger as an opportunity for Mr Blair.

Blair casts himself as EU president candidate

Speaking on French TV, Tony Blair sang the praises of the EU and sketched his agenda for its future, all in fluent French

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During a visit to Washington last week I was struck by how these doubts were expressed by mainstream members of the Administration and not just by Pentagon hawks and their allies. When I asked a senior official with long international experience what irked Americans about European attitudes, he said "smugness", "intellectual arrogance", "snobbishness", "weak leadership" and "vacillation". And, implicitly, US officials resent being patronised.

These differences have been exacerbated by Iraq but were not created by it. European leaders are accused of failing to change their thinking. Europe is seen as inward-looking, obsessed with its own institutions and reluctant to match internationalist talk with an increase in defence capabilities. Some Democrats share these criticisms, while attacking Mr Bush for mishandling relations by clumsy unilateralism.

Of course, memories are short and present problems always look worse than past ones. James Steinberg, the former Deputy National Security Adviser in the Clinton Administration, and a critic of the Bush approach, points to previous transatlantic disputes: over economic policy in the 1960s and 1970s, and over the stationing of cruise missiles in Europe in the early 1980s. Disagreements over the Middle East go back more than 20 years, and the US's general unqualified support for Israel is still the most serious gap with European, including British, thinking.

Even now, despite the exchange of rhetorical salvoes across the Atlantic, Europe and the United States agree on far more than they differ. Co-operation on terrorism has been close over the past year and European leaders feel, with some justice, that their desire to contribute more after September 11 was rebuffed by the Pentagon. Despite cuts in defence spending plans, Germany has been far more active in the Balkans and Afghanistan than would have been conceivable a few years ago. For all the current coolness, US and German leaders will presumably have to talk at the Nato summit in Prague later this month.

Yet the present gulf cannot be wished away in diplomatic platitudes. It is partly about leadership styles. President Bush, I was told by someone who knows him well, emphasises his personal relations with other leaders. He likes leaders who lead. Mr Bush thought he had an understanding with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder over Iraq and now feels let down, as well as being insulted by the crude anti-American language of the campaign. He is as unforgiving about personal slights as his mother, Barbara Bush. He is also unimpressed by President Jacques Chirac, who he feels did not have a clear view of what he wanted to do after the French elections. The current lengthy negotiations over a United Nations resolution on Iraq have not helped.

By contrast, Tony Blair is widely praised on all sides in Washington. He is seen as influential in reinforcing existing instincts, rather than changing minds, over the original decision to make fighting al-Qaeda a priority over Iraq, over the need for international involvement in Afghanistan and over a fresh UN resolution on Iraq. It is wrong to portray Mr Blair as President Bush's poodle in the caricature of his domestic and European critics.

But the Blair tactic of being supportive in public, and frank only in private, is also a trap. There is the risk that he will be taken for granted. Mr Blair is listened to in urging the US to be more engaged internationally, but the Bush team feels no need to make concessions to him. So when British officials emphasise, rightly, how a UN resolution is very important for Mr Blair domestically to answer domestic critics, members of the Administration reply that Mr Blair has assured them that he will be with the US anyway.

Mr Blair may also be asked to do too much. The State Department views him as an ally in inter-agency disputes in Washington. But he has to be careful of provoking opposition from other groups, as Margaret Thatcher did.

Moreover, there are also risks in being Washington's favourite European. Like most of its his postwar predecessors, Mr Blair talks about being a bridge between the US and Europe. He sees his role as explaining European concerns in Washington, and American priorities in Europe. But Mr Blair's clout in Washington depends also on his influence in Europe. A Washington-London alliance is not enough. That is partly why Mr Blair has encouraged direct US-French contacts over the UN resolution. A potential cost has been a revival of Gaullist attitudes by President Chirac, which were behind his recent spat with Mr Blair. So any sense of satisfaction in London over strains in US relations with Germany and France is misplaced and short-sighted. The US needs strong allies in Europe, just as much as European leaders need to understand American worries.

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