For Poland, these have been heady times

Not since the country liberated itself from Soviet control has it assumed so visible a role on the world stage, or one so defiant of the wishes of its most powerful future partners in the European Union, which Poland is scheduled to join next year. Last week, the Polish defense minister, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, invited his German counterpart, Peter Struck, to contribute troops to the Polish-led force that the United States foresees guaranteeing security in Iraq. The Germans summarily, even angrily, dismissed the invitation. But officials say that in joining the United States and Britain in Iraq despite French and German pressure not to do so, Poland was making a strategic decision, aimed at cementing ties with the United States when Washington was grateful for international support. Clearly, many Poles are proud of their country's enlarged role and its enlarged ambition. Poland was for centuries dominated, and at times obliterated, by more powerful neighbors. So irritating Berlin with an invitation to join the Polish security force in Iraq brought a perverse satisfaction. "It is ironic and perhaps therefore annoying to Berlin that Poland today is playing the role that Germany itself assumed up until recently," the German paper Die Welt said late last week. It was referring to Germany's role as the bridge between the United States and European Union members. Poland, still emerging from half a century of Communist dictatorship and misrule, is far from a global powerhouse. Its economy has been pummeled by the global downturn and hit by adjustments needed for European Union membership, leading to an unemployment rate of 20 percent. The left-of-center government has one of the lowest approval ratings in Europe, about 12 percent. While opposition to the war in Iraq was not as widespread or as intense as it was in countries like Germany and France, opinion surveys in Poland still showed a majority of Poles opposed the war. Poland, with 37 million people, is certainly the largest and most significant of the former Communist countries to join the Western clubs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. Yet it is dwarfed by its historically dominant neighbors, Germany, population 80 million, and Russia, which crosses 11 time zones.