"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping it will eat him last," Winston Churchill once warned.

Churchill's warning fits today's Europe all too well. For years, some European countries love to applaud Washington's addiction to dressing up self-interest as "national security." Sometimes, they even jostle to act as an accomplice.

Now, that same cudgel of so-called national security is hammering them hard. Surprise? Pain? Lesson learned? Not so fast.

For those opportunistic European politicians, long accustomed to kneeling before Washington, standing up seems unlikely. They are most likely to kneel again -- until the crocodile eats them alive piece by piece.■