HAMBURG, Sept 17: Acclaimed US writer Jonathan Franzen, making clear his antipathy to President George W. Bush’s actions in Iraq, said Europeans should leave Bush “dangling” at least for another year — until the November 2004 presidential elections.

In an interview to appear in Thursday’s edition of the weekly magazine Stern, Franzen accused the Republican Party in the United States of having invented Iraq as an enemy.

He said the US public would not have supported a war in Iraq if the Bush administration had not declared it to be a war about the US internal security.

Europe should let Bush dangle - “preferably until the elections next year” — regarding his request for support in Iraq, Franzen said.

“Please, Europe, you could do us a great favour. I say this as an American taxpayer,” Franzen said. His comments also alluded to a widely-held view that the Republican Party had been without direction after the end of the Cold War.—dpa