The pro-war leaders of the United States, Australia and Britain have been re-elected, while the French and German leaders - both outspoken war opponents - stand at the edge of the political abyss, former presidential adviser David Frum noted recently.
Professor Stephen Szabo, a Germany expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, says Schroeder is "not even a lame duck, but a dead duck".
Even German diplomats agree that Schroeder's trip will be a tough one. U.S. President George W. Bush and Schroeder have "at best a good working relationship", one diplomat said.
Strains have been heightened by Washington's refusal to support a permanent German seat on the U.N. Security Council - one of Schroeder's top foreign policy goals.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Berlin in an attempt to lessen the impact of the U.S. stance, to make clear that the decision wasn't directed solely against Germany. But the U.S. position still was taken as a "slap in the face", the diplomat said.
Fox News commentator John Gibson recently rubbed it in. Washington opposes a permanent German seat because Germany is only technically a friend, he said.
Germany, "having dumped all over us," particularly during Schroeder's successful 2002 re-election campaign, could hardly expect U.S. support in getting into the world's most exclusive club, Gibson said.
"You would have to be smoking the lederhosen to think Germany was going to somehow make George W. Bush forget how brutally mean and vicious the Germans were before the war," Gibson said.
Such harsh tones won't be heard Monday when Bush and Schroeder meet at the White House. But the meeting is unlikely to produce much beyond the usual smiles for the camera and joint statements of common interests.
Still, Schroeder will wants to bring home good images showing him as a confident statesman as he campaigns for re-election in a vote that could be held as early as this fall.
Bush can expect no additional German assistance for postwar Iraq. At the same, the president is unlikely to make concessions on issues such as global warming, expected to be a central theme of the Group of Eight summit next month.
The European Union's political crisis is also on the agenda, and Bush is expected to stress U.S. interest in a "strong, united Europe". <!--page-->
But some things have changed. U.S.-European differences have never been so extreme as now, and the spirit of camaraderie will be hard to revive, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a recent newspaper interview.
Washington's view that Europe's importance is declining doesn't help. Although German diplomats say their advice is sought by the White House and the State Department more often than a year ago, Germany still doesn't register much on U.S. radar screens.
Former U.S. ambassador to Germany John Kornblum recently accused major U.S. media of failing to register the biggest recent political event in Germany, the devastating defeat of Schroeder's Social Democrats in elections in the key state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
With polls in Germany predicting a conservative victory in the next general election, Schroeder's visit to Washington is widely seen in the U.S. as a farewell tour. Bush would be happy to see new faces and a less active French-German axis, said Szabo.
The United States undoubtedly would find it easier to work with a Christian Democratic government than with Schroeder, the conservative Washington Times newspaper commented.
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