ATHENS -- It was a curious political moment in the cradle of democracy. A recent visit by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami sparked a flood of favorable media coverage about Iran -- and an avalanche of condemnation of America.

In a story headlined, "Greece does not recognize axis of evil," the Athens News approvingly noted Khatami's call for "a more measured exercise of United States global hegemony." And Premier Costas Simitis indicated that last year's terrorism in America had prompted some soul-searching in the Greek government: "We reviewed international relations after Sept. 11 and (understood) the need for a world with multiple poles."

In other words, the mass cremation of thousands of American civilians led Greece to the conclusion that the U.S. is the world's lone bully, and something should be done to restrain it.

Similar points have long been made by thinkers from Baghdad to Pyongyang. And what reasonable global citizen hasn't given some hard thought to the question of how to diminish the influence of the world's leading democracy in favor of states where adulterers are stoned and mullahs march teenagers into battle to clear minefields?

But if the Greek government is seeking to forge a bold new alliance against hegemonists everywhere, somebody got his signals crossed. Because during Khatami's visit, the papers also carried photos of the frigate Psara casting off with a 226-member crew and a team of navy commandos. The Greek fighting men are heading to the Arabian Sea to join the U.S. war on terrorism.

A certain degree of schizophrenia comes with the turf when you set foot in today's Europe. Half of the continent now shares a single currency, and the European Union desperately wants to behave like a grown-up superpower, with its own military force. Yet unlike the U.S., it refuses to pay for a superpower military. Thus it seeks to use NATO assets to form a European force. To do so, it must allow non-EU member Turkey (a NATO ally) a veto in deployments in its "sphere of influence." This in turn enrages EU-member Greece, and could derail the whole plan.

Europe's confusion is most evident on the topic of America. For half a century, Europe depended on the U.S. military to ward off the threat of a Soviet invasion. Yet since the days of de Gaulle, anti-Americanism has been fashionable here in ways that puzzle visitors from Dallas or Chicago, who expect a certain camaraderie among the democratic nations of the Old World and the New. So you're French and you don't like McDonald's? Fair enough. Neither do most Americans who possess taste buds. But would you stop driving your tractors through franchise windows before somebody gets hurt?

In Britain, partygoers make small talk by sneering at America, as the author Salmon Rushdie recently noted in The New York Times. Last year a well-traveled British journalist complained to me about the "Americanization of North Korea." Her grievance, I think, was Pyongyang's decision to distribute Coca-Cola in a tiny number of international hotels. Never mind that Pyongyang is more hostile to the U.S. than any other nation on earth.

In London and Berlin, protesters dressed as the Grim Reaper or Uncle Sam marched in the tens of thousands against the American-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan, then retreated in abashed and resentful silence when liberated Kabul residents flew kites, danced in the streets, slipped cassettes in their tape recorders and cast off their burqas for the first time in five years. Should war break out in Iraq, as some American pundits are predicting, watch for a similar pattern.

European squeaks of disapproval resounded recently when U.S. President George W. Bush defined Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil." Let's begin by admitting that the statement was not evidence of astute political thought. The three nations are in no way allied, and notwithstanding the saber rattling, the U.S. has no intention of launching a war against two of them (Iran and North Korea). Nevertheless, one senses disproportion in the international condemnation of Bush.

Over the last 20 years, not a day has gone by in which Iran's leaders have failed to denounce America as "the Great Satan." North Korea demonizes the U.S. (and Japan) as a monster bent on world domination. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine churns out anti-American propaganda at a dizzying rate. If once every quarter century or so an American president answers in kind, the world probably will not collapse into nuclear apocalypse.

The Bush administration has sparked anxiety -- in Greece and elsewhere -- even when its statements have a strategic rationale. Recently a chorus of condemnation followed the release of a Pentagon report that the U.S. would strike back against certain nations (Iran among them) should they threaten America with weapons of mass destruction.

Last year Bush was accused of destabilizing the world order when he announced that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Yet America's failure to speak with such clarity after World War II may have emboldened North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung into launching his Soviet-backed invasion of the South in 1950. Sometimes, tough talk helps keep the peace.

If Greece has a problem, say, with the possibility of an American war against Iraq, now is the time for it to make its voice heard internationally. But when Greece responds by shaking its fist and then sending its troops, is there any wonder the Bush administration finds consultations with allies an exercise it would rather do without?