Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

mirage (plural "mirages") noun

1. an optical illusion of water appearing in the desert, caused by light being distorted by layers of hot and cool air

2. something illusory, unreal or merely imagined

Origins: from the French mirer "to look at", from the Latin mirare "to wonder at", variant of mirari "miracle"

Codenamed "Mirage", the mooted Franco-German plan for regime change in Baghdad is evaporating as quickly as it appeared. Marked from the outset by frivolity, it also lacks substance and logic. One of the main planks in Berlin?s arguments against the US resolute approach to Saddam has been concern about the legitimacy of "regime change". That it should then float the notion of a semi-permanent occupation of Iraq by the UN and not see that this would represent regime change in all but name makes one wonder about the intelligence of those charged with running Germany these days.

Collateral damage victims of the Mirage manoeuvre include the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. He's been put in an untenable position and his future in the ruling coalition is being debated openly. The ruling ?Red-Green? coalition is now so rudderless that no one should place bets on its survival. Making a mess of the domestic economy while torpedoing the country?s international standing is a remarkable achievement but it has been done.

Now that France and Belgium have blocked a request from the US to provide NATO protection for Turkey in the event of a war, the rift between parts of Europe and the US is formal. Collective security? A mirage.

Diarist of the day: Franz Kafka, 10 February 1915

"My neighbour talks for hours with the landlady. Both speak softly, the landlady almost inaudibly, and therefore so much the worse. My writing, which has been coming along for the post two days, is interrupted, who knows for how long a time? Absolute despair. Is it like this in every house? Does such ridiculous and absolutely killing misery await me with every landlady in every city?"