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."
