John J. Miller and Mark Molesky have a good piece on John Kerry’s call for better allies than our current coalition partners—specifically, Germany and France. (Hat tip: Joel.)

America, Kerry complains, is shouldering 90 percent of the costs and the casualties in Iraq (a figure that excludes Iraq’s own costs and casualties). Yet the French and the Germans have made abundantly clear that they won’t be throwing their men or materiel into the mix.

“As everyone knows, France did not approve of the conditions in which the conflict was unleashed,” French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 23. “Neither today nor tomorrow will it commit itself militarily in Iraq.” German foreign-policy official Gert Weisskirchen has said much the same thing: “I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops, whoever becomes president.”

Why this reluctance? Two main reasons.

First, domestic politics: Both Schroeder and Chirac have promised their voters repeatedly that they won’t get involved in Iraq. Sen. Kerry may see no problem with sudden reversals of opinion, but the French and German leaders know they’d pay dearly at the polls if they sent so much as a handful of traffic cops into Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Second, and more important: Their fundamental difference lies not with the Bush administration, but with U.S. foreign policy broadly understood.

At the core of the Chirac/Schroeder geopolitical outlook is not the thankful belief that America is the world’s only superpower, but the regretful notion that it is an out-of-control “hyperpower” (as former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine memorably put it). The United States and its influence, in this view, must be balanced — “balanced,” being a euphemism for opposed.

This helps explain Barnier’s remarks last week, when he said that France will attend a proposed conference on the future of Iraq only if the complete withdrawal of foreign troops is a formal topic for discussion and the negotiations include “all political forces” in Iraq, “including those who have chosen the path of armed resistance.”

Kerry may want to bring the French to the table, but guess who’s coming to dinner with them: terrorists and rebels now attacking U.S. soldiers and slaughtering Iraqi citizens.