BOB GARFIELD: As peace activists lament what the public did not see, the rest of the world is pondering what it did see. The president's State of the Union Address inspired some argument in Europe, but what may be most striking, says Bill Falk, editor in chief of The Week, is how little the rest of the world shares our obsession with Iraq.

BILL FALK: I, I would say that-- American newspapers on a given day -- you might see 40 percent of the articles in some way relate to either Iraq or the war on terror. In the European press, and in the rest of the world, it's less than 10 percent.

BOB GARFIELD: Is it an exaggeration to say that the Europeans are more concerned at the moment about the fate of Europe with respect to this American display of hegemony in, in Iraq than they are with the actual consequences of war? And, if so, how did - was that reflected in the papers?

BILL FALK: Yes. I mean there seems to be a real sense that this war is inevitable. I don't think most of the European commentators see any way the war is, is going to be headed off at this point by the opposition of any nation. And instead what does concern them is that they are so divided on it. The European Union is just really at, at, at the point of trying to knit itself together into a confederacy that speaks with a single voice on foreign policy, and here in this first big test, the question as to whether to go to war with Iraq, there's this huge fissure has opened up. After the president's speech 8 European nations signed a letter -- kind of an op-ed piece that they published in newspapers throughout Europe. It was in the Wall Street Journal here. The UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Denmark, Poland and the Czechs --pledging support for the U.S. and lauding the U.S. for its quote/unquote "bravery, generosity and farsightedness." The French were lamenting this, as were the Germans. There was a front page headline in Le Monde in Paris that said "Europeans displayed our differences in front of Washington," and there was a lot of handwringing in the paper about that. Similar sentiments appeared in El Mundo in Madrid where the newspaper expressed disappointment that the Spanish government had expressed its support for the U.S., and the paper said, quote/unquote "Europe should speak with one voice." And it noted that the head of the E.U. foreign policy body was very skeptical about the war. On the other hand, in Italy and in, and in the UK there were some expressions of frustration with the French and the Germans. In, in Italy the newspapers were saying that -- "Who are the French and the Germans to presume to speak for all of Europe?" British newspapers expressed a similar view. An editorial actually in the Times of London said that -- and I'm quoting here -- "The posturing of Jacques Chirac and the strategic pacifism of Gerhard Schroeder have painted a wholly misleading picture of European opinion" and that "Donald Rumsfeld's statement that France and Germany constitute 'Old Europe' may not have been a triumph of diplomacy, but it did not lack candor."

BOB GARFIELD: I know the world is on the edge of its seat to know how the Swiss are going to weigh in on all of this -- as pro-active as they've been in world politics over the last 300 years, so what do they have to say?

BILL FALK: Well the Swiss see-- this whole war as an example of America's hubris. The Swiss paper Le Temps says "The reasons for the American military buildup are born of the conviction on the part of powerful men in Washington that the era of co-existence among different regimes, particularly adversaries, is over. American power can, these men believe, create a new phase in history -- one of the forcible transformation of situations that the U.S. finds intolerable. The country will not rid itself of this presumption until after much heartache and many wounds. Europe, whether it likes it or not, has a duty to resist."

BOB GARFIELD: All right. As, as someone once said, "Another country heard from." Let's move out of Europe for a moment. As you look at Africa, at the Middle East and the Pacific Rim -- anything from the newspapers there that strikes you as worth noting?

BILL FALK: Well, interesting -- in the Middle East most of what we've seen in the Arabic newspapers so far is really more concerned with Sharon's re-election in Israel than they are about the Iraq war. There seems to be resignation, perhaps acceptance, throughout the world that a war with Iraq is inevitable and in many of these nations they're more concerned with, with local matters. Even in France, for example, the front pages are actually dominated by the-- events in the Ivory Coast where there's been a four month civil war that the French have tried to broker a peace to, and that's really the, the big story in France. We don't see a lot of other commentary throughout the world.

BOB GARFIELD: You have one more story for us that I think we should discuss -- Iraq is not the only matter on the agenda of the European media. Something that began in England has had reverberations in Moscow.

BILL FALK: Yes. The Russian newspapers this week are pondering whether there has been a grave insult to the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. The papers and actually some of the web sites there are full of chatter about this -- that a close look at the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets reveals that the house elf in the movie -- a character called Dobby -- who is a little elfin fellow with buggy eyes, a big long nose and a pinched face -- bears a striking resemblance to President Putin. And there is some debate as whether this-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] And does he?

BILL FALK: Well he does, actually! We, we-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

BOB GARFIELD: Putin is an elfin figure. He's not a towering, imposing man.

BILL FALK: Well at The Week we went and got photos of both of them; put them side by side in the magazine and you can decide, but-- I would say that they do look separated at birth.

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] All right. Well Bill Falk, once again, thank you very much!

BILL FALK: Thank you, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD: Bill Falk is the editor in chief of The Week. [MUSIC]