Posted by
Patrick Baldwin on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:00:00 AM
As the foreign policy direction of the new administration begins to evolve, it begs the question; with friends like US, who needs enemies?
The first foreign press interview granted by our new president was not to the British, French, German, Canadian or Israeli press, but to Al-Arabiya. Okay, so maybe he was sincere in just wanting to open a new dialog.
The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, comes to Washington for his first official meeting with Obama. This representative, of a country which is arguably one of our two closest allies, receives a blatant snub. Unlike previous White House meetings, he is ushered in and out rather quickly, with only a brief Q&A session, instead of the joint press conference normally held. There are no normal State functions held, and even Mr. Brown's wife get the casual brush off from our First Lady. When this very apparent snub is addressed by a British reporter to the State Dept., the response is that British are out of line in feeling snubbed, that they aren't special, they are no different that any of the other 190 countries that the government is dealing with.
Then, onto our second steadfast friend, Israel. Our esteemed Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, travels to the Middle East. Does she trumpet our support for our Israeli allies, no, the hallmark of her visit is Obama's pledge of $900 million to assist the terrorist Palestinian group, Hamas, with rebuilding Gaza.
So, as I am left to understand, the new US foreign policy is to kiss up to hostile Muslim regimes, disrespect the British, and stick a thumb in the eye of Israel. What's next, pull our troops out of South Korea and apologize to Kim Jong Il for standing in his way all these years? Or maybe we can send a nice greeting card and basket of processed uranium to Achmadinejad?