After weeks of speculation, the will-they, won't-they handshakes took place last week between US President George W. Bush and his counterparts from France, Germany and Russia, who opposed the Iraqi war. Their falling-out damaged relations, but all intoned gravely during the American leader's visit to Europe that it was time to reconcile.
As French President Jacques Chirac took the role of chief protagonist in the anti-war movement, his encounter with Mr Bush on the sidelines of the Group of Eight industrialised nations summit in the French spa town of Evian last Sunday was billed by the media as akin to a heavyweight boxing match.
Swiss President Pascal Cochepin, characterising the atmosphere ahead of the meeting, summed up the mood: 'When elephants fight, the whole forest trembles.'
But there was no rumble in the jungle; instead, both leaders pledged to move on from Iraq. Yet, something was amiss - before the international media, there was a will for unity, but away from the television and newspaper cameras, the separation seemed as determined as ever.
'We can have disagreements, but that doesn't mean that we have to be disagreeable to each other,' Mr Bush said last Sunday, after meeting Mr Chirac.
In speeches at the summit, the French leader proved the continuing discord by expounding his view of a 'multi-polar' world in which no single power - meaning the US - held sway.
