Mr. Obama in Europe...a total success? Mr. Z doesn't think so.........

Obama’s Europe Trip of Missteps

The expectations were huge. Here comes this young, new American President to Europe, who, in his own words, „doesn’t look like the other Presidents on the dollar bill“, and who has a charming wife who has turned into a fashion icon and has just appeared on the cover of Vogue. Obamania was in full swing, and he charmed his way through Europe, always displaying his big, nice smile, and radiating this almost exotic appeal which attracts so many people who want to come and see for themselves! Despite several protocol missteps, including hugging the Queen and bringing her an iPod including his own speech from 2004, this aspect of his trip was a success. He looked popular.

The situation is completely different, however, when it comes to the substance of the trip. It was rough to see an American president, who instead of leading, came, in his own words, to come to listen and not lead. The problem started exactly at that point. If the U.S. President is not leading, who is expected to lead? Well, actually, Merkel and Sarkozy did very well in that category. But I am getting ahead of myself. We’ll take the different subjects one at a time, shall we?

Obama and Russia. Obama had a meeting with Russian President Medvedev before the G20 meeting. Main subject: A new, comprehensive and binding Disarmament Agreement, meaning a stark reduction of strategic nuclear weapons. Russia agreed to such agreement, but Obama does not realize that he cannot trust the Russians to live up to such agreement (that is why Medvedev grinned after the meeting). But it gets worse: Obama made a public declaration later during the trip (in Prague) that all nuclear weapons should be eliminated. The response from the Kremlin didn’t take long to come: A sound “nyet”. Conclusion: Full failure.

Obama and the G20. As far as Obama’s role is concerned, this was a complete disaster. Merkel and Sarkozy got their view of tight control of the financial system accepted (in view of toxicity of assets and the Soros-style casino-like gambling with derivatives an absolute necessity), and also defeated Obama in his quest to have everybody accept socialist-style stimuli and bailouts. He got, of course, support from the socialist British Prime Minister Brown who appealed particularly to Merkel to provide more stimuli in Europe, since he wanted to take advantage of that because Britain had already spent, spent, spent more than they could ever afford over the years – just a little preview of what is going to happen in the United States of Obama, unless this is somehow stopped. But Merkel refused. Back to Obama, he failed to convince the participants not to pump more money into international organizations. The U.S. should have never given money for some bureaucrats in international organizations to distribute at their discretion. Conclusion: Full failure.

Obama and the NATO. At NATO’s 60^th birthday meeting, a new Secretary General needed to be elected. Turkey had blocked the person proposed by Angela Merkel, the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen, because it had been in Denmark that the Muhammad caricatures had appeared years ago! Instead of telling Turkey to take a hike, Obama intervened and got Turkey to accept Rasmussen. Conclusion: While at the surface Obama helped Merkel to save face, it came at a price – some concessions to Turkey, like important posts in NATO, which remained obscure (at least to me), and maybe his requests on behalf of Turkey (see below). Since this was more like a celebratory event, no assessment relative to NATO can be made. However, we don’t know yet what the long-term effect of the concessions to Turkey mean.

Obama and Europe. While a certain smoothing of the tone with the European allies was certainly a positive move, Obama went too far by calling the European Union “the world leader“. Europe has an important role to play, for sure, but at least in the current state of affairs in the European Union, the EU fails to take a uniform position even for the most miniscule issues, and is deeply divided over the its role and future constitution after the last attempt in Lisbon a couple of years ago turned out be a dismal failure. But history in general just seems to escape Obama. And then there was this large public speech in Prague where he did what he did his best to provide a well presented speech from the teleprompter. Other than platitudes, his speech was marred, however, by two items which show complete ignorance of history: (1) He announced his intent to make the world “nuclear-weapon-free”. This, of course, is a crowd pleaser everywhere, where you find socialists and communists – and there are plenty, not only in the U.S. So, the crowd cheered. But the response from Russia came promptly: “Nyet”. (2) He requested that Turkey must be accepted in the EU. The response came promptly from Paris (“Non”) and Berlin (“Nein”). Conclusion: Form over substance. Form: A “reach-out” was well received. Substance: Obama stepped from one mishap into the other.

Obama and Turkey. It is worth noting that Turkey was Obama’s first real foreign State Visit. Was it an accident that he chose an Islamic State for that occasion? Remember, his first telephone call after being President was to Mahmud Abbas in Palestine, and his first public TV interview was with an Arabic Station. His visit in Turkey was commented upon in a German newspaper, it said that Obama felt “that Turkey serves as a role model”. He also said in the speech at the Parliament in Ankara that “Turkey had so much history in common with Europe” that it is only logical when he requests that Turkey be allowed to enter the EU. This only shows complete and utter ignorance of history as well as the situation of today with Turks in Europe. The strongly negative reaction from Berlin and Paris came immediately. Well, in addition, he also said that the United States is not a Christian or Jewish or Muslim Nation, but a Nation of citizens. Conclusion: Complete disaster.

While everything looked so nice, and Obama was so friendly and open, the objective assessment of the trip can only be called a complete failure. He destroyed any notion of the U.S. as a powerful Nation on which other countries can rely. His proposals were all rejected. His ideas were repudiated. And on top of that, when he was just in full swing and announcing all his wonderful ideas about a new world order, the North Koreans launched a rocket (to which his reaction was more than weak). It has become abundantly clear – the international political leaders are Merkel and Sarkozy these days, and the new world powers are Russia and China. So, other than schmoozing with everybody, making a nice impression, and having a First-Lady-Contest between Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy , in terms of substance the trip was a catastrophe for the United States.

This is how the German centrist newspaper summarizes Obama’s Europe trip: Naïve Visions instead of Concrete Results.

Z: Obviously, this was written from Mr. Z's points of view on the various subjects, but he arrives at them with a good understanding of history and a great love of his adopted country, America.

The biggest problem is the MEDIA...that the trip is touted so favorably and that "Europe Loves Mr. Obama"....we need truth in the media, folks....it isn't happening these days. There were plenty of headlines like the one from FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine) just above here. I personally applauded his reaching out to the kids in Turkey as I think we DO have to soften their hearts and give them the true American story, not what THEY hear. I don't have enough information on the students in France and how Mr. Obama did there. But, their apparent admiration for this president is a great boon to our country and, if he plays his cards right, telling of OUR GREATNESS and how we've done SO much for them and that we want PEACE, that can't hurt, eh?

I pray that happens and I believe the Turkey meeting was a good start. That's all I admired about his visit to Turkey, though I'm not totally sure it's not a terrible thing for the moderate Muslims to hear that we're not against THEM. (I wish he'd added that we could use more HELP FROM MODERATES in our fight against terrorism. If he did, I'd love to hear about that and would appreciate links.)

thanks! And thanks to Mr. Z for this article...!

z