Where Are Obama's Foreign Confidants? -- Jackson Diehl, Washington Post
I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office. A lot of hemming and hawing ensued.
One official mentioned French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is scheduled to bring his glamorous wife to the White House residence this month for a couples dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama. But in France, Sarkozy's bitterness toward Obama, the product of several perceived snubs, is an open secret, reported widely in the French press. In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in September Sarkozy appeared to mock Obama's signature disarmament initiative, saying "we are living in a real world, not a virtual world."
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My Comment: Relationships is what world leaders always strive for .... this is the reason why we have G8, G20, and scores of other international conferences every year. But for President Obama .... since coming to power .... he has been giving the perception that he is not interested in cultivating these relationships. In fact, it appears that he disdains them.
Will this harm U.S. foreign relations ... it probably will when we need international cooperation on certain international issues. But for the moment, President Obama has been successful in avoiding such an outreach. The true test is when he will have to make those calls during an emergency situation or crisis .... that is when he will truly know where he stands with these leaders.
1 comment:
I feel like the tragedy of Obama is that he was elected by people who wanted him to do things differently, but when he got to the office he discovered that it's hard to change anything when you're surrounded by people doing it the same old way. As long as the rest of the world leaders on earth operate on personal relationships, trying to stay "above the fray" and strictly professional is never going to get you anywhere...
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