Killing The "Special Relationship"

When President Obama took office his vague and ever so progressive view of foreign relations included the specious notion that all US relations with all other countries were predicated upon a shared set of international "rights and relations." This hyper-egalitarian position was not only adopted contrary to the dictates of history and reality but shoved aside all considerations of "special relationships" typified by that binding the US and UK for the last century.

The US has always defined its conduct of foreign relations with an eye on its specific relation with the Great Britain. For the first century or so of our existence, we tended to define ourselves, our existence, by firm opposition to all things British. On more than a few occasions following the War of 1812 we came to the brink of war with the British, most recently during the Cleveland administration over the matter of "Olney's Eighteen Inch Gun" memo.

Since then, and, in particular, since 1917, the US has viewed its relationship with the UK as first among equals. FDR bent the law beyond recognition to give all aid short of war to the battered and beleaguered British following 1 September 1939. Americans fought and died in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany in order that supplies, including warlike stores, could get through the submarine blockade of the home islands. This was not legal. Arguably, it violated even the Constitution. But, it was the right thing to do. It was also a testament to the "special relationship" which tied the US to the UK.

Various presidents in various ways have acted to fray the web constituting the special relationship. So also have assorted British prime ministers. The ties of shared history, shared values, shared world views, shared needs and aspirations as to what constitutes a world order in which either and, therefore, both could flourish have assured the special relationship continued despite transient difficulties.

Before Mr Obama no American president eschewed the very notion of the special relationship between ourselves and Great Britain. Before Mr Obama brought his unique personal mixture of progressivism run amok, world class naivete regarding world affairs, and personal history, perhaps including myths regarding British mistreatment of a paternal grandfather during the Mau-Mau Emergency, the thought of jettisoning the special relationship was unthinkable.

While Mr Obama has also tossed out the similar, but not equal in either basis or consequence, special relationship between the US and Israel, he seems to have harbored a particular desire to destroy for once and all any vestige of the US-UK unique linkage. The motivations for this apparent drive belong in the realm of psychodynamics. The implications for both countries exist in the real world.

It is not necessary to rehearse the dreary record of the gratuitous insults heaped on the British starting with the removal of the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and continuing to the present day. Nor is it sufficient to excuse the record on the basis of Mr Obama's frustration and anger over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil blowout. (The recent exercises in rhetorical overkill are simply add-ons to the earlier, and far less excusable bad behavior on the part of the president.)

The American president and the new British prime minister have talked on the phone more than a few times, but the G-8 and G-20 meetings provide the first chance for the two men to breathe each other's air. The meeting will not be easy or necessarily productive given the two men's differences in political stance, economic policy, and world view.

The differences, taken in the context of both the administration's and Congress' harangues about and against BP and the intentional diminution of the "special relationship," are almost guaranteed to assure that the (in)famous "reset" button will not be pushed by the Obama finger. This implies that if any chance exists for the special relationship to survive the perils of the Obama touch, it depends upon the patience, forbearance, and far-sighted statesmanship of David Cameron.

Even though Mr Cameron has demonstrated in the opening days of his ministry a measure of deliberate calm, rationality, and openness marking him as a refreshing personality in the British political scene, the deck at home is stacked against any attempt to revivify--or even sustain in a minimal way--the "special relationship. In this context it should be recalled that the British parliament concluded in a report a few months ago that the "special relationship" may have run its days.

The House of Commons panel making that dreary assessment may have been prompted by an understated version of the you-can't-fire-me-I-quit dynamic. The panel may actually have been of the view that if the Obama administration was scuppering the generations of enmeshed history, perhaps it would be better to do the job first. That motivation is both quite understandable and forgivable. Far more understandable and forgivable than the Obama efforts at relationship murder.

Over the years, particularly on this side of the Atlantic, there has existed a feeling to the effect that the "special relationship" is far more critical to the British than to the Americans. There are quite obvious and equally superficial reasons for this conceit.

It would be quite easy to demonstrate the falsity of the view, however. All that would be necessary is for David Cameron to push up the date of British withdrawal from Helmand province to, say, 1 October 2010. The flap this move would produce throughout Beltway Land is delightful to imagine. Pulling ten thousand excellent troops out of the still quite hotly contested province would spell the end to any hope of pulling even the slightest semblance of "not-losing" from the yawning maw of defeat.

Even the vague hint of a British total withdrawal by 2015 has raised whispers of "defeat" in and around the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom. Ratcheting the hint to the level of even "semi-commitment" would raise the decibel level of panic from incipient to immediate.

There is another way to get the message through the preternaturally calm and detached presidential brain housing group. That would be a serious talking to by an adult member of the administration (if there is any.) The substance of the lecture would be, if the US, if a single American president, can unilaterally abrogate a diplomatic and political relationship which has been extended for generations and sealed by the blood of both Yanks and Brits, then what country can trust a relation with the US?

Credibility, the worth and strength of America's word, is what is at stake in the current situation. American credibility has been the reason thousands of Americans died in Southeast Asia. During the long, long war in Vietnam, several presidents of both parties dedicated the lives of Americans to the alter of credibility.

If past presidents have been so worried about the worth of American commitments that they have been willing to spend American blood in truckload lots, then, what is that Mr Obama does not understand? Why does he believe that his single handed jettisoning of the US-UK special relationship has no effect on the perceptions of other countries, other governments?

No matter what sort of public window dressing is put on the meeting between Obama and Cameron, the reality of the "special relationship" being an endangered species will remain. Unless and until Mr Obama can reverse his course on the nature and character of our relation with the UK, doubts will both linger and grow.

These doubts will continue, a cancerous bloom in waiting, not only in London but in the capitals of other countries which have considered themselves to enjoy a relationship, if not "special" then at least close with the US. If these countries cannot be convinced that the Obama Team is dedicated to the maintenance of the "special relationship," they will not be comfortable with any commitment made to them by the current administration--or the continuation of previous commitments by Obama and company.

The historical record as well as current dynamics in global politics demonstrates that not all relationships are created equal. There is no uniformity of relationship defined by international "rights and responsibilities." Rather all foreign relations are bi-lateral at root. At the same time, because they are each and all bi-lateral, the change in one long-standing relation has consequences, intended or not, on all others.

Once again, Mr Obama, reality has shown conclusively just how wrong your ideologically driven views are. And, how destructive they can be.