From the very first day of taking office, the Bush administration has denigrated alliances and allies as undue constraints on an all-powerful America to do as it wants. So after 9/11, the administration rejected offers to work with NATO even though the allies had for first time in history invoked the collective defense provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty. To its mind, alliances constrain while coalitions enable. Or as one State Department official boasted earlier this year, "We 'ad hoc' our way through coalitions of the willing. That's the future."

It's long been clear that a belief in an America Unbound has come with great costs -- notably the reluctance of other countries to support our endeavors. Which is why 85% of the foreign troops, 90% of the military casualties, and 95% of the aid dollars in Iraq have been American. But what hasn’t been all that clear -- at least until today -- is how much the administration has underestimated the contribution of allies, even of those who oppose American policy.

As today's New York Times reports, it turns out that the same German government that so vociferously opposed our going to war against Iraq provided crucial intelligence and material assistance to the military effort.  It's long been known that German forces helped indirectly -- by protecting US bases in Germany, keeping a chemical warfare clean-up unit in Kuwait, sending Patriot missile batteries to Turkey, and deploying ships in the Gulf.  But now we also learn that just one month before the start of the war German intelligence provided our forces with the actual Iraqi military plans to defend Baghdad!

All this from an ally that didn't even support the war. So the next time you hear the administration denigrate the utility of real alliances and allies, ask them whether they’d rather rely on the help of such stalwart coalition partners as Palau and Micronesia or on the assistance of real allies like Germany.