Relations with America's two strongest allies in shambles

Barack Obama campaigned for president promising to "restore our standing in the world" after eight years of the war on terrorism under George W. Bush. Two years later, the fighting is still raging in Iraq and Afghanistan. But worst of all, Obama has continually snubbed Britain and Israel, our strongest allies in the world. Last week, Joe Biden scolded the Israeli government after they announced the construction of apartments in a contested area of East Jerusalem while he was there. Today Obama made the situation much worse.

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Benjamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Obama walked out of his meeting with Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a U.S. congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.

“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.

In the ultra-sensitive world of diplomatic relations, this is an absolute cataclysm. It will affect American-Israeli relations for a long time. Prior to Obama's presidency, Israel and America viewed themselves as natural partners in a fight against a common enemy. George W. Bush supported a Palestinian state and occasionally clashed with the Israelis, but never so arrogantly as this.

It also sheds some light onto why Rahm Emanuel has been dropping lines he might leave the administration. Rahm fought for the Israeli army and is widely known to be a firm supporter of Israel. He must be hopping mad over Obama's deplorable treatment of Israeli diplomats.

America's other closest ally is Great Britain, a country for which Obama has shown disdain from day one. The president insulted the British Prime Minister by giving him a collection of American DVDs, sent back a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office, and sent Hillary Clinton to Argentina to support diplomacy over the Falkland Islands, among many other offenses. The Brits are atwitter over their "special relationship" with America being over.

Obama is a product of the same radical thinking that haunted the 1960s and produced men like Bill Ayers. Through this lens, western white nations like American and the U.K. are the true practitioners of evil in the world. True virtue lies in third-world peoples of color. This is why Obama gave a speech in Cairo sucking up to the Muslim world. It's why he stood alone among western nations in supporting a Marxist coup in Honduras. If this thinking persists, it could harm our diplomacy for a long time.

State Department apologizes to third-world despot

Last September, cartoonish Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi was invited to the United Nations in New York. There Qaddafi gave a rambling speech in which, among other things, he called for a jihad against Switzerland, defended the Taliban, demanded that American officials who initiated the war in Iraq to be tried, and wondered whether the swine flu was actually a biological warfare weapon. When asked about the speech six months later, chief State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, "I saw that report and it just brought me back to a day in September, one of the more memorable sessions of the U.N. General Assembly that I can recall: lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place, not necessarily a lot of sense."

Two days ago, Crowley actually apologized for that remark.

Chief department spokesman P.J. Crowley said he regretted any offense caused by his response to a reporter's question about Gadhafi's recent call for a holy war against Switzerland. Libya said last week it might take action against American business interests there if a formal apology was not made.

"I understand that my personal comments were perceived as a personal attack," Crowley told reporters. "The comments do not reflect U.S. policy and were not intended to offend. I apologize if they were taken that way. I regret that my comments have become an obstacle to further progress in our bilateral relationship."

The Libyans had been outraged by Crowley's gentle remark and demanded an apology. Crowley had met with the Libyan ambassador previously to try to smooth things over, but Qaddafi still wanted a statement of regret. The tyrant got what he wanted.

The incident stands in sharp contrast to the Obama Administration's approach to Great Britain, America's strongest ally. The Obama Administration has breached diplomatic protocol with the British several times, including the notorious episode when Obama gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of American DVDs as a gift. No apology has ever been given and the British are atwitter over whether their special relationship with America has ended. Norway was also slighted by the president when he didn't attended lunch with King Harald V during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance tour, a rite of passage for all Nobel recipients and a sign of goodwill to the Norwegians. Again there was no apology.

Obama has previously apologized to the Muslim world for American interventionism during his speech in Cairo, Egypt.