The European dailies welcome the early transfer of sovereignty in Iraq. But they vary in their degree of optimism and many fear for the country's short-term future.
'In name only'
France's Liberation devotes its whole front page and five inside pages to yesterday's early handover of power and the situation in Iraq.
"Ayad Allawi's government will be sovereign in name only," it says. "It has no democratic legitimacy to issue legislation, only limited access to financial resources and above all it lacks a monopoly on the use of armed force within its borders that is the hallmark of a sovereign state."
"The near future will tell if this limited sovereignty can be anything more than a paper screen soon to be torn up by bomb blasts."
Madrid's El Pais believes "formally everything is different now, but in reality little has changed. And yet we must hope that this transition process works, because there is no alternative."
But the daily sees "a growing mood of scepticism" among Iraqis "and even despite their high-sounding words, among the allies in an Atlantic Alliance lacking in a sense of European unity."
'Sign of failure'
Spain's La Razon sees yesterday's ceremony as the beginning of "an institutional precedent with few precedents in the region's - and even the world's - recent history". Whether it succeeds or fails "is basically in the hands of the Iraqis, but they will need everyone's cooperation".
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
And El Mundo says success is needed for Iraq's sake, but also "for the sake of the United States' credibility as the paramount promoter of freedom and democracy in the world".
Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung plays down the handover and predicts it will not stop those it calls "the terrorists".
"They hate the sovereign Iraqi government now led by Ayad Allawi, too, and regard it as a creation of the Americans - which it is indeed." The paper argues that only the general elections planned for January will tell what kind of government the Iraqis really want.
Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung interprets the bringing forward of the transfer of sovereignty by two days as a sign of failure. "The fact that the fear of attacks meant that not even a massively protected ceremony could be held as planned, amounts to an admission of failure."
What took place was not so much a transfer of power as "the transfer of chaos".
"In this situation, it goes without saying that it would be wrong to send a Nato peace force to the country."
'The best day'
Austria's Die Presse , on the other hand, describes the early transfer of sovereignty as "a clever political move, which surprised friends and foes alike and duped the enemy".
As the paper sees it, Monday was "the best day for a very long time... for both the much criticized allies and the suffering Iraqis".
The Czech daily Hospodarske Noviny believes that the handover was brought forward partly because the coalition wanted it to coincide with the Nato summit so as to forestall a potentially unpleasant debate on setbacks in Iraq.
The other reason, the paper adds, was that the allies wanted "to take the wind from the sails of Iraqi armed rebels" planning "deadly attacks for 30 June".
"Is this not clear proof of how strongly the rebels affect developments in Iraq?"
"Unquestionably, this is a step towards settling the situation in the occupied country," says Russia's Krasnaya Zvezda.
Tribune de Geneve
"The normalization of the situation in Iraq promises to be extremely difficult, because the central nervous system of the state has been knocked out and its life support systems destroyed."
"The extremist forces have taken advantage of this in their own way and unfortunately, as sober politicians predicted, the foreign military intervention has pushed the country to the brink of civil war."
'Between hammer and anvil'
For the Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve "the transfer of sovereignty was President Bush's way of justifying himself to his electorate by suggesting that, while not everything in the garden is rosy, the essential task has been accomplished."
The paper finds it "a bit rich" that in Istanbul, Nato should "be lending itself obligingly to accommodate America's exercise in self-congratulation".
Elsewhere in Switzerland Le Temps says the new Iraqi government, "fragile though it may be and caught between the hammer of the terrorist threat and the anvil of the multinational force, is at least now standing on its own two feet".
After "a war that has cost America dear in every respect", is America "now ready to pay the price of Iraq's regained sovereignty?" it asks.
The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.
