No free ride for Europe, says top Barack Obama aideIn an interview with The Daily Telegraph on the eve of Mr Obama's week-long trip to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe, Susan Rice emphasised that the election of Mr Obama would mark a decision by Americans to "turn the page" on President George W Bush.But the former Rhodes Scholar, who took her Master's degree and doctorate in international relations at New College, Oxford, made clear that an Obama administration would also challenge Europe to do more after a Democratic victory in November's election."It would signal a return to the more pragmatic and bi-partisan traditions of American foreign policy, which have been lost to ideology in the Bush years," she said. "He will not proceed through an ideological frame and seek to impose that frame on every challenge.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph on the eve of Mr Obama's week-long trip to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe, Susan Rice emphasised that the election of Mr Obama would mark a decision by Americans to "turn the page" on President George W Bush.
But the former Rhodes Scholar, who took her Master's degree and doctorate in international relations at New College, Oxford, made clear that an Obama administration would also challenge Europe to do more after a Democratic victory in November's election.
"It would signal a return to the more pragmatic and bi-partisan traditions of American foreign policy, which have been lost to ideology in the Bush years," she said. "He will not proceed through an ideological frame and seek to impose that frame on every challenge.
The most lionised US politician since JFK visits Europe next week. Mass outbreaks of Obama-mania are expected. Are you prepared? Read Leonard Doyle's instant briefingThe tour "Renegade" (Barack Obama's Secret Service nickname) is due to arrive in Jordan on Monday - or he might go first to London. Or will he make a lightning dash from Amman to Baghdad or Kabul? Nobody knows. Such is the hyper-sensitivity about protecting the first black candidate for the world's top job that only the innermost members of his 300-strong inner circle of foreign policy advisers are privy to his itinerary. Nonetheless, Obama is on his way to Europe, and is expected to stop for a high-profile handshake or two in London. He's also going to France and Germany, as well as heading for Israel and the West Bank - where security fears are high. The Irish, too, want O'Bama to drop in on Moneygall (one traffic light, two pubs, pop 298.) His great-great-great-grandfather, one Fulmuth Kearney, left for America in 1850.The agendaObama has been relentlessly twitted by his opponent as a foreign policy lightweight, so his 2008 tour is all about finding the right soundbites and photo ops for the folks back home. He has to convince sceptics in Kansas and West Virginia that he's got the Right Stuff to be commander-in-chief. What they don't want are huge crowds of adoring European fans swooning before him. Instead, expect lots of earnest handshakes, dramatic backdrops and the unavoidable crowds. As a political cross-dresser, Obama is desperate to appear at the Brandenburg Gate and channel Ronald Reagan ("Mr Gorbachev, tear down that wall"). But Angela Merkel is kicking up such a fuss that he may have to settle for channelling John F Kennedy ("Ich bin ein Berliner") instead - outside Berlin's town hall. Expect some harsh words for Europeans who criticise America while taking the free ride they get on the back of America's battered army. He won't just be talking about the liberation of Europe in the Second World War and the Berlin airlift. If Washington reopens, as he hopes, under new management, Obama wants German, Belgians and Italian boots on the ground in Afghanistan - and anywhere else where hard fighting is taking place against terrorism.
The tour
"Renegade" (Barack Obama's Secret Service nickname) is due to arrive in Jordan on Monday - or he might go first to London. Or will he make a lightning dash from Amman to Baghdad or Kabul? Nobody knows. Such is the hyper-sensitivity about protecting the first black candidate for the world's top job that only the innermost members of his 300-strong inner circle of foreign policy advisers are privy to his itinerary. Nonetheless, Obama is on his way to Europe, and is expected to stop for a high-profile handshake or two in London. He's also going to France and Germany, as well as heading for Israel and the West Bank - where security fears are high. The Irish, too, want O'Bama to drop in on Moneygall (one traffic light, two pubs, pop 298.) His great-great-great-grandfather, one Fulmuth Kearney, left for America in 1850.
The agenda
Obama has been relentlessly twitted by his opponent as a foreign policy lightweight, so his 2008 tour is all about finding the right soundbites and photo ops for the folks back home. He has to convince sceptics in Kansas and West Virginia that he's got the Right Stuff to be commander-in-chief. What they don't want are huge crowds of adoring European fans swooning before him. Instead, expect lots of earnest handshakes, dramatic backdrops and the unavoidable crowds. As a political cross-dresser, Obama is desperate to appear at the Brandenburg Gate and channel Ronald Reagan ("Mr Gorbachev, tear down that wall"). But Angela Merkel is kicking up such a fuss that he may have to settle for channelling John F Kennedy ("Ich bin ein Berliner") instead - outside Berlin's town hall.
Expect some harsh words for Europeans who criticise America while taking the free ride they get on the back of America's battered army. He won't just be talking about the liberation of Europe in the Second World War and the Berlin airlift. If Washington reopens, as he hopes, under new management, Obama wants German, Belgians and Italian boots on the ground in Afghanistan - and anywhere else where hard fighting is taking place against terrorism.
I want a President, not a Generalissimo
and don't get me started on "The Homeland" "Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"
We should be so grateful for being finally allowed to clean up the mess left behind by W's gang. I know, I can hardly stand the excitement either.
Cold war mentality? Let see: two super-powers maneuvering smaller pawn states, Kosovo on my left, Abkhazia on my right. Thousands will die in this Empire game, but who cares? Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Do more what, exactly?
Rice:
"He will not proceed through an ideological frame and seek to impose that frame on every challenge.
...Which is a guarantee that he will.
The frame is US Exceptionalism, and the message will be that as vassal states, we have a duty to support that.
"do more" what, exactly ?
That's the whole problem. Obama talks in vacuous phrases where actual meaning is tenuous and unlikely to be what you hoped/thought it was. In this I'm reminded of the mendacious phrase "Endeavour to persevere" told to the Indains in the film "Unforgiven".
Why should we support their stupid war ? They broke it, we didn't. It's like Iraq. Good things could have happened if only it wasn't run by a bunch of idiots who think that they can do what they like, kill who they want and have everybdoy love them cos everybody loves American gum.
If they want to get Afghanistan back on track they have to stop doing what they're doing. All of it. they have to stop bombing people who are neutral. they have to stop bombing weddings, they have to stop killing people cos it's easy.
Cos it's easy, fun even, to break things, blow things up and people are just so easy to kill. Blood on the sand and holes in the ground give politicians a sense of progress. But it doesn't win peace. And if Obama wants our enthusiastic help he has to stop with the blood and the bombings.
He, working alongside other, wiser, less guilty-of-counter-productive-mayhem, heads has to work out what the hell we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan (apart from waging war on ideas) and to determine a better way of achieving that aim that what is being done now. Till then, I hope our jellyfish elites find the courage to say don't call us, we'll call you. keep to the Fen Causeway
He, working alongside other, wiser, less guilty-of-counter-productive-mayhem, heads
That's going to be the crux of the problem. He already talks about resorting the US as the leader of the world - with that picture in mind it might be difficult for him to act alongside others.
Obviously, spend more money on munitions and soldiers so you can help us defeat the world-wide communist conspiracy. Or, maybe it's the world-wide terrist conspiracy. Or the Islamicists. Whatever. Some sort of foreigners, that's for sure.
