Should America Regret Change?
by uber
We have borne witness to the phenominal rock-star power of the Obamas. From the school-girl mobbing of Michelle to the President’s supposed turning-by-charm of a previously sour-faced Agela Merkel, the First Couple’s charisma & popularity is irresistable.
But we have to ask what the substance of both the G20 and the NATO meeting is. Gordon Brown was, at his own Minister’s admission, too ambitious to predict a concrete result from the G20; a forum which included Germany & Fance, who blame the Anglos for this whole mess, and have very bad memories of money print.. sorry, quantitative easing. Averting a walk-out from Sarko was enough.
At the NATO meeting, we had a much more important and focused test of President’s ability to get a oui, nous pouvons.
The United States is stretched thin and it is increasingly looking like a bad situation is going to disimprove rapidly as the tribal elements on the Pakistani border grow bolder. There already appears to be a process in hand to sideline Hamid Karzai and his cabinet-of-warlords, but without significant international assistance, the US military will be politically isolated. Barack Obama needed to deliver real troop commitments.
The result? 30 trainers from Belgium and half as many from Spain.
The American people must be furious. If the whole gesture of reconciliation with the rest of the world that was the election results in little more than a cursory nod, the maybe the previous administration’s opinion of a lazy, febrile Europe was the right one. Maybe electing Barack Obama was a mistake because the thanks you got from the rear of the world was superficial and mocking. At the height of his mintiest-fresh, he could not turn his own allows to help him.
The obvious answer is that thinking the American people elected Obama for the rest of the world is infantile. Like all politics, it’s 98% internal. However, I could feel a tangible frustration from the US that it’s still business as usual from the allies.
On the, err, third hand the Americans are playing a dangerous game in merging the Afghan border’s two sides into one AfPak border. There is a substantial Pakistani population in Britain & Europe, and escalation into the territory of an ally with strong links to your population would have to make Britain nervous.
Comments
While the few, mythical Americans who might have voted for Obama “as a gesture of reconciliation with the rest of the world” surely appreciate the effort Obama put towards rallying support for the ongoing war, I think most people here (and I expect in Europe) are concerned with the economy and focused on the G20 talks.
The NATO talks seemed more like a “Well, while we’re over there, we might as well see if we can shore up some of those alliances we supposedly have.” From that perspective, it was a success for the US.
.. wasn’t this the NATO where the French came back into the tent? Isn’t that a fairly decent days work for a summit?
We’ll see how comfortable France is in NATO:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6106250.ece