America in the World

The BBC's world affairs correspondent presents a one-sided account of the UK-US relationship

Paul Reynolds, the BBC World Affairs correspondent, has written a very one-sided article on the BBC website about the US-UK relationship.

Mr Reynolds swallows the lines put out by Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington, in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry. He quotes Sir Christopher Meyer without qualification:

"During the lead-up to the war on Iraq in 2003, Britain failed to make its influence felt on two fronts. First, it did not insist, as the conditions for its support, on progress in the Middle East peace process and on better planning for post-war Iraq. Second, it did not get a commercial trade-off. Its demands for changes to an air services agreement and steel tariffs were ignored."

In reality, Britain's influence on Washington was enormous at the time. Tony Blair insisted on getting approval from the United Nations for the war. The UN route forced Britain and America to focus on the issue of WMD rather than the odious nature of the Saddam Hussein regime. Regime change is not permissible under 'international law'.  The failure to then win UN approval undermined global support for the war from the off.

Reynolds goes on to conclude that "History, in fact, warns us not to expect too much from this transatlantic relationship." He then lists various of the disappointments in the US-UK relationship, only offering this throwaway effort at balance at the end of his piece: "What still counts is a security sharing arrangement and trust, which involves the US giving the UK a nuclear missile."  "A nuclear missile?"  Margaret Thatcher would agree that it amounted to a lot more than "a" nuclear missile.

I don't want to defend some of the 'downs' in the UK-US relationship.  The current White House's behaviour towards Britain on Afghanistan, for example, is unacceptable.  But there are 'ups', too, that Mr Reynolds chooses not to mention. Considerable 'ups'.

The whole western world shelters under the umbrella of America's huge investment in defence and intelligence.  Without US naval power we would all be paying a great deal more to keep the high seas free of piracy, for example.  Without US intervention in the Middle East, despotic regimes would probably be unchallenged and world oil prices would be much, much higher.

During the Falklands War - after a hesitant start - America helped enormously with the conflict against Argentina - especially with submarine detectors, missiles and aircraft fuel. The intervention on Britain's side soured US relations with much of Latin America for many years.

No two nations share more intelligence than Britain and America.

America remains the number one destination for UK overseas investment and the US remains the number one investor in the UK.

It's true that the relationship isn't as special as it once was but a public service broadcaster - like the BBC's Paul Reynolds - should have offered a much more balanced account of it.

Tim Montgomerie

Obama will attend Copenhagen conference after tumultuous week for climate change campaigners

Environmental campaigners will be grateful that President Obama has agreed to attend the Copenhagen climate change conference despite a growing sense in recent weeks that the meeting will fail to deliver binding legal commitments from world governments. The White House will hope that this visit to the Danish capital will be more successful than ther President's last, when he travelled in support of a bid to win the Olympics for Chigaco. America was eliminated from the contest for the 2016 Games in the first round of voting.

US Senator John Kerry welcomed the President's commitment to the climate change gathering:

“The fact that the president will attend the Copenhagen talks underscores that the administration is putting its money where its mouth is, putting the president's prestige on the line.”

Furthermore Mr Obama has pledged to reduce total US emissions by 17% by 2020 (based on a 2005 starting point). That ends US isolation - previously America was the only developed country without an explicit target.  Climate change campaigners hope that the American President's commitment will encourage China and India to make similar commitments and that those commitments will, in turn, encourage a sceptical US Senate to pass the stalled Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

The possibility of sceptical American legislators passing climate change legislation declined further this week, however, after Congressional Republicans "started investigating climate scientists whose hacked emails [from the University of East Anglia] suggest they tried to squelch dissenting views about global warming". There is a full Wall Street Journal report here into the investigation. In an editorial the WSJ considered the importance of the leaked emails:

"We do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies."

In a further blow to the climate change industry, the BBC has highlighted the fact that money promised under the Kyoto Treaty by developed to developing nations was never delivered. The failure to deliver the money meant to help poorer countries deal with climate change will not increase trust between the first and third worlds in Copenhagen.

A $30m investment could provide citizens of repressive regimes free access to the internet

An interesting editorial in yesterday's Washington Post argues that a $30m investment could mean that fifty million extra people in repressive regimes could have access to Twitter. Apparently the US State Department has the money within its budgets for this very purpose but has not yet disbursed it.

The Global Internet Freedom Consortium and similar groups have developed the capacity to give citizens of China, Burma, Iran, Cuba and other totalitarian regimes free access to internet services like Twitter. The Consortium declares its mission with these powerful words:

Writing in June, Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times described the power of these "censorship-evasion technologies".

With violence in Iraq down by 93% thoughts turn to the long-term US-Iraq relationship

In the latest edition of The Weekly Standard Max Boot reports continued improvement in the situation in Iraq despite the withdrawal of US troops from major cities:

"Notwithstanding the diminished American role, which occasioned some initial confusion on both sides, violence has not risen since June 30. In many areas attacks are actually lower today, down to levels not seen since 2003. Only 9 Americans died in combat in October--still 9 too many but a far cry from the grisly totals of years past. In all, 285 people were killed in October in political violence across Iraq, a 93 percent reduction from three years ago. (There were 4,100 fatalities in October 2006, according to data provided to me by the U.S. military headquarters.) When attacks do occur they do not spur revenge killings as in the past. Baghdad is now full of life and electricity--literally. The streets are lit up at night. Stores are open, including hundreds of stores selling liquor, and the streets are full of traffic."

Thoughts are turning to what the US-Iraq relationship might look like in the long-term:

"It is important not only to achieve a smooth handoff from U.S. to Iraqi forces but also to lay the foundations for a future U.S.-Iraqi strategic partnership that could become a pillar of stability in the Middle East. There is talk of a post-2011 U.S. military training mission here and joint U.S.-Iraqi exercises such as the biennial Bright Star exercise the United States conducts with Egypt and other allies. Sales of U.S. military equipment are in the pipeline. If F-16s are sold, as the Iraqis want, they will then be reliant on U.S. spare parts and support for many years to come. On the cultural side, it would make sense to bring more Iraqi students to the United States and possibly even establish a new American University in Baghdad like its predecessors in Cairo and Beirut."

Read the full article.

> Recent post: The untold story of the surge that saved Iraq

Obama's America 'is the worst kind of ally'

A little while ago I commissioned the drawing on the right to accompany this piece on Barack Obama's 'disarming' foreign policy. I feared that Obama has decided that it is more important that the world's policeman is popular than it is strong. In a withering cover piece for this week's Spectator (above) Con Coughlin accuses President Obama of mistreating Britain in the much delayed decision about strategy in Afghanistan:

"The astonishing disregard with which Mr Obama treats Britain has been made clear by his deliberations over the Afghan issue. As he decides how many more troops to send to Afghanistan — a decision which will fundamentally affect the scope of the mission — Britain is reduced to guesswork. The White House does not even pretend to portray this as a joint decision. It is a diplomatic cold-shouldering that stands in contrast not just to the Blair–Bush era, but to the togetherness of the soldiers on the ground... There will, though, inevitably come a time when Obama discovers who America’s true friends really are. Sooner or later he will have to deal with the considerably more taxing issues of Islamist militancy, rogue nuclear states and other tangible threats to the West’s security. At that point, Obama will discover a simple but essential truth. The world divides between those who support American values of freedom and democracy, and those who seek to destroy them. Few nations have been more committed to supporting those values with both blood and treasure than Britain. This country, and especially those British troops fighting alongside their American counterparts, deserve far better than this president’s disregard."

Fraser Nelson, The Spectator's new Editor, bigs up the piece: "Obama is simply not there. And in this respect he is, as we say on the cover, the worst kind of ally."

Barack Obama avoids human rights talk during China visit

A leading article in the FT warns Obama against 'kow-towing' to China:

"Mr Obama’s efforts to occupy the moral high ground are also undermined by his flirtation with protectionism, particularly his decision to slap tariffs on Chinese tyres.

His administration has failed to spell out a convincing trade policy – and that is seen as a stark omission for a business-oriented Asian audience. Such perceived deficiencies have hobbled his ability to cajole China with any real conviction.

When it comes to human rights, too, the US seems to have drawn the conclusion it is not good policy to badmouth its chief creditor.

Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, set the tone early when she said that human rights should not “interfere” with matters of implicitly greater urgency. Mr Obama obligingly omitted all references to Tibet, Xinjiang and even Taiwan from his Tokyo speech. There was also not a single mention of India, a potential regional counterweight to China, yet another indication that Washington is behaving as though it is treading on eggshells. It was therefore all the more refreshing to hear Mr Obama criticise Chinese censorship during his town hall meeting in Shanghai on Monday – though even that could not undo his own self-censorship in refusing to meet the Dalai Lama before this week’s trip.

It is right and proper that the US acknowledge the rising significance of China. Mr Obama’s assurances that China’s rise need not be a threat were spot on. But by the same token, US accommodation can be taken too far. Contrary to common perception, China’s huge holdings of US treasuries are not a sign of great strength. They are evidence of how dependent Chinese growth has been on the US consumer.

Equally, any idea that China, with an economy less than a third the size of the US and a GDP per capita roughly the same as Angola’s, can somehow save the world is ludicrous. Mr Obama is right to show respect to China. He need not – and must not – kowtow."

Obama under pressure to attend climate change talks in Copenhagen

Britain's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, ed Miliband, has urged President Obama to attend next month's Copenhagen summit on climate change:

 "I think as many leaders as possible - including President Obama - do need to come there, because that will make a difference in the end to the kind of deal we want... His diary is a matter for him, but I hope he does go. I think it's important that this is done in the end by leaders."

(Source: BBC).

The pressure on the US President is likely to be resented by the White House. President Obama does not want to be associated with a failed summit and in the last 24 hours there has been a retreat from the initial hope that Copenhagen would deliver a binding climate deal.

World leaders are more hesitant, partly because of opinion polling which suggests voters do not see action on climate change as a priority during these difficult economic times. In a poll of British voters for The Times, "only just over a quarter (28 per cent) think that [climate change] is happening and is “far and away the most serious problem we face as a country and internationally”.  "Just over half (51 per cent)," found Populus for The TImes, "think it is “a serious problem, but other problems are more serious”.

A growing number of Americans think media coverage of climate change is "exaggerated".

'No big mistakes but no real progress' says Time magazine's review of Obama's foreign policies

In a profile of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Time magazine's Joe Klein - a Democrat-supporter - tries hard to be positve but cannot help but voice worries about the direction of Barack Obama's foreign policy:

"There is a growing perception that the Administration's policies have been thwarted across the board: Afghanistan is a mess, Iran seems ready to scuttle the nuclear negotiations, there's no progress in the Middle East, the Syrians and North Koreans remain recalcitrant, the Russians have been offered a freebie on missile defense, and the Chinese have been given a pass on human rights with no apparent quid pro quos...

There is also a growing sense that the President's inexperience is beginning to show — not in his overall policy, which represents the views of a broad, moderate national-security consensus ranging from Brent Scowcroft to John Kerry, but in his execution of the details. The Afghan strategy review has been too public and taken too long; the Middle East peace hunt has become a wild goose chase. A letter to Iran's Supreme Leader is a productive gesture only if it gets a response; if it doesn't, it seems weak and supplicatory. A call for the Israelis to freeze settlements is effective only if it is accompanied by the credible threat of a reduction in aid. "You can't be seen pushing countries around — demanding [that] Israel freeze settlements, demanding that Hamid Karzai reform his government — and not get results," says Leslie H. Gelb, author of Power Rules. "The leaders of these countries are tough, successful politicians, and they'll begin to take you less seriously."

Klein does, however, argue that Obama possesses "the wisdom to have refrained from doing anything so wildly stupid as invading Iraq".

Read the full piece.

The untold story of the surge that saved Iraq

This is well worth thirty minutes of your time. It's a guide to how the American military under General David Petraeus pulled Iraq back from the brink of civil war. It includes exclusive remarks from Petraeus himself.

There is more on this website including a timeline of the surge.

George W Bush made the decision to send extra troops after nearly every advisor urged him to take other courses.  It was his best, bravest and loneliest decision as President after he had stubbornly stuck with the failed Rumsfeld strategy for far too long.

Ultimately the surge was about proving commitment as Bush made clear one year after he had despatched more troops:

"One year ago, our enemies were succeeding in their efforts to plunge Iraq into chaos. So we reviewed our strategy and changed course. We launched a surge of American forces into Iraq. We gave our troops a new mission: Work with the Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people, pursue the enemy in its strongholds, and deny the terrorists sanctuary anywhere in the country.  The Iraqi people quickly realized that something dramatic had happened. Those who had worried that America was preparing to abandon them instead saw tens of thousands of American forces flowing into their country. They saw our forces moving into neighborhoods, clearing out the terrorists, and staying behind to ensure the enemy did not return."

In the context of today's situation in Afghanistan some of those words are really worth repeating: "Those who had worried that America was preparing to abandon them instead saw tens of thousands of American forces flowing into their country."

The world's policeman is disarming

A year ago Barack Obama was elected American President. At first it looked like there might be a great deal of continuity in foreign policy but, over time, the differences have become very apparent.

George W Bush was not himself consistent in foreign policy. As I've written before, he pursued something resembling neoconservatism in Iraq and then realpolitik in Pakistan, multilateralism in Iran and traditional appeasement towards Saudi Arabia. These strategic approaches - particularly in Iraq - were not always pursued competently. Nonetheless, when Obama beat McCain, one of the big messages taken by the world was that the 'war party' (the Republicans) had lost to the 'peace party' (the Democrats).

Since the victory of 'the peace party' anti-Americanism has gone into reverse in most parts of the world. The decline of anti-Americanism has not, however, translated into tangible benefits for America. Europe has not given more troops to the Afghan campaign. Russia has not signed up to sanctions against Iran. Scotland released the Lockerbie bomber, ignoring Hillary Clinton's objections. And, less seriously, the IOC did not give Chicago the Olympics despite Obama's best efforts.

A year since Obama was elected it is possible to see a consistent pattern in his foreign policy. Individual decisions may be justifiable but, added up, they send a message that the world's policeman has largely disarmed:

On Afghanistan, the President has delayed and delayed deciding what to do in response to a report submitted to him by his own commander-on-the-ground, General Stanley McChrystal. Sources in the British government are worried that the "dithering" is now hurting the mission. The people of Afghanistan will not co-operate with NATO troops so long as they think the commitment is weak but will tie their fortunes to "the strong horse" of anti-western militants.

On Iraq, Obama accelerated George W Bush's more gradual troop withdrawal.

On Iran, Obama hesitated to support the peoples' protests against the widely-questioned re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Within the last week he hesitated again to back pro-democracy protestors in Tehran. A decision condemned inside the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

The White House cancelled George W Bush's missile defend shield for the Czech Republic and Poland in the hope that Moscow would help force Tehran to end its nuclear programme. The concession was made to Russia but to no effect.

Barack Obama declined to meet the Dalai Lama for fear of offending Beijing.

Rather than isolating the government of Sudan for its genocidal abuses in Darfur, the Obama administration has proposed a mix of “incentives and pressure” in future relations.  Even the New York Times gasped: "We have difficulty accepting the idea of any outreach to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for directing the genocide in Darfur."

The biggest sign of disarmanent has been in the new respect for the United Nations. The UN is a great talking shop with a terrible track record of confronting evil regimes or threats to security.

Obama has apologised for America on many occasions - particularly to the Muslim world.

The Wall Street Journal's overall view is that America has been more keen to truck with America's enemies than its friends:

"His Administration has sought warmer ties with Iran, Burma, North Korea, Russia and even Venezuela. But it has picked trade fights with Canada and Mexico, sat on trade treaties with Colombia and South Korea, battled Israel over West Bank settlements, ignored Japan in deciding to talk with North Korea, and sanctioned Honduras for its sin of resisting the encroachments of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez." 

Is the world more dangerous today than a year ago? Not noticeably but there is a real danger that under Obama's disarming watch the forces that grew during the equally disarming Clinton years will grow again. The final word to Mayor of London, Boris Johnson:

"It was one of the very greatest American presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, who said the duty of America abroad was to "speak softly but carry a big stick". George Bush forgot the "speak softly" bit. But Obama needs to remember the vital importance of continuing to carry a big stick. That is because the job of America is still pretty much what it was when Fleming wrote Goldfinger in 1959 - to take on the bad guys in a way that no other country is able or willing to do."

Tim Montgomerie