Deputy should soothe Europe

Robert Zoellick, the US trade chief, is expected to be confirmed as deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the new Secretary of State, this month. The decision to install an old-school “realist” will be a bitter disappointment to the neoconservatives, whose influence dominated Mr Bush’s first term. But Mr Bush and Ms Rice overlooked John Bolton, the uncompromising Assistant Secretary of State, who was the lone “neocon ” in Colin Powell’s State Department.