September 7, 2010
MEANWHILE, THE REALITY IS...:
Europe and Benign Neglect (ROGER COHEN, 9/07/10, NY Times)
Europe, for the first time in hundreds of years, has become a strategic backwater. Europe is history.Since taking office, President Obama has reached out to the Muslim world as a whole, to China, to Turkey and to Iran, but has devoted scant serious diplomatic energy to Europe. In many ways, he is the first post-Atlanticist president, drawn by temperament, upbringing and circumstance to focus elsewhere.
“Europe is the object of benign U.S. neglect,” said Camille Grand, a prominent Paris-based defense analyst. “Obama has not established or re-established a strategic relationship with any single European country or with Europe as a whole.”
Obama remains popular with Europeans — even if giddy infatuation has gone the way of giddy infatuations — but European political leaders feel jilted. Obama was supposed to put together the European Humpty Dumpty that President Bush shattered by favoring alliances of the willing over old alliances. He hasn’t.
...that W left office on excellent terms with our old allies, many of whom elected leaders in his image (England, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Israel, etc.). It's little wonder the UR doesn't get on with W's pals.
