To Estonians living in the West--former refugees from communism--support of hard-line, conservative foreign and defense policies has become almost a knee-jerk reflex over the years. That was probably appropriate during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was hegemon over much of Eastern Europe and a threat to Western-style democracies in whose fold Estonian refugees had sought shelter. But times have changed, and US President Bush's aggressive policies -- which included the casting aside of the U.N. Security Council and any vestige of international law, and have now evolved into the invasion of Iraq (and who knows what other countries deemed to be a potential threat)-- have brought the world to a dangerous point in history. That the US and its two real coalition partners (forget about Condoleezza Rice's fable of a coalition from every continent) will defeat Saddam Hussein's regime is only a question of days or months. But it is becoming increasingly clear, that the peace has been lost!

As to Mr. Kallas's evocation of Munich, it was probably driven by either or both of two factors: (a) in terms of realpolitik, no government of a recently re-independent Estonia is in a position to buck the most powerful country on Earth, regardless of how its citizenry feel; and (b) he's forgotten the history of the years leading up to World War II. Hitler's Germany, post-Rhineland and post-Anschloss, was the militarily the most powerful country in Europe. Iraq has a population of one-tenth of the United States, is about the size of California, and had a military force estimated only as one-thrid of its pre-First-Gulf War days. Some threat! Some prophylaxis!

In the last paragraph, the term should be post-Anschluss )(mitte post-Anschloss).