ROME (AP) – At the Pantheon, where antiquity’s best preserved monument stares sternly across the piazza at a McDonald’s, Antonio Rossi shakes his head as he ponders whether President Bush has mellowed.

“He’s hardheaded,” said the chauffeur, exhaling smoke as he waited for his boss. “He’ll start wars in Iran, in Korea.”

Bush’s visit to European Union headquarters next week will be the most extensive ever by a U.S. president and comes shortly after a tour by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who won widespread praise for her emphasis on the need for a new chapter in trans-Atlantic relations.

But opinion in Europe is divided about whether Bush is truly prepared to heed different approaches to issues such as Iraq, global warming and the nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea – or drop his blunt style.

Some Europeans took heart that Rice has the president’s ear, and speculated that she may be able to guide him toward a more pluralist foreign policy.

“It seems to me she’s more intelligent, less narrow-minded, more moderate than Bush,” said Jean-Pierre Colin, 65, who works in advertising in Paris – the capital at the heart of anti-Bush sentiment over the Iraq war.

Others grudgingly credited Bush with bringing about democratic elections in Iraq, even though violence and instability remain the order of the day there.

“I think there has been some softening up in the attitude toward Bush after the successful democratic elections,” said Johan Hermann Rump, 29, a student in Copenhagen, Denmark.

European officials are eager to continue the momentum from Rice’s visit. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday that the only way of solving global crises was for Europe and America to work closely together.

“The challenges are so huge that we cannot solve them alone,” Barroso told The Associated Press.

Bush flies to Brussels Sunday for a three-night stay during which he will dine with French President Jacques Chirac. Bush will meet with the 25 EU leaders on Tuesday and then dine with Barroso, EU security affairs chief Javier Solana and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country now holds the EU presidency.

He then visits Germany for talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder – another Iraq war opponent – before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia.

But throughout Europe – in countries like Italy whose governments supported the Iraq war and in those like France which vehemently opposed it – antagonism toward Bush remains widespread.

Inside the Pantheon, the august temple to all of Rome’s gods that today functions as a Christian church, Spanish tourist Miriam de la Fuentes spat out an invective against the American president.

“He’s a bad man,” she said.

“A very, very, very bad man,” chimed in her husband, Francisco.

“An egoist,” said Miriam. “He doesn’t think about the people.”

For Europeans, the friendlier new Rice doctrine seems to amount to this: We’d be delighted to work with you – as long as it’s on the U.S. agenda of spreading democracy around the world.

Most Europeans think that’s a very dangerous idea. A recent German Marshall Fund poll indicated that 65 percent of the French felt American leadership in the world was undesirable.

Europeans are all the more wary of U.S. leadership because they feel they were lied to about the main reason for going to war in Iraq: Weapons of mass destruction.

A German poll this month illustrated just how widespread the feeling is in Europe that Washington can’t be trusted.

The Infratest dimap research group survey indicated about 70 percent of Germans believe the United States was already planning an attack on Iran over its nuclear program. Bush has not ruled out such a step; Iran claims its program is for peaceful purposes.

Many Europeans believe Bush needs to focus on what they feel is a more pressing issue: peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

“He could take a harder line with Israel to win support in the Arab world,” said Ruben Eshuis, a photographer in Amsterdam.

In Europe, with its strong tradition of secular politics, people are also shocked by Bush’s willingness to invoke God in expounding his crusade to topple tyranny.

“George Bush, with his hollow claims of being in an alliance with God, is presenting himself as the boss of the planet with a divine right,” commentator Pantelis Boukalas said in an editorial in the Athens daily Kathimerini.

Gerald Grois, a 40-year-old math teacher in Vienna, said cowboy swagger extends to Bush’s entire administration.

“It’s not just him alone – it’s his whole team. It’s a bit like Wild West films,” Grois said.

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