Barack obama

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Gordon Brown gets something right!

Gordon Brown is expected to offer to decommission one of Britain’s four Trident submarines as part of nuclear non-proliferation discussions at the UN today. The Times has the details: ‘Mr Brown will signal tomorrow that he is ready to negotiate at a meeting of the UN Security Council on nuclear non-proliferation. It follows President Obama’s decision to ditch the US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. That move, and Russia’s delighted response, has bolstered hopes that a new non-proliferation treaty could be agreed next spring. Officials travelling with the Prime Minister to New York insisted that there was no question of surrendering Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

The McChrystal plan

So, the report written by ISAF commander, Stanley McChrystal, to President Obama on NATO’s Afghan mission has been published. It does not contain a request for more US troops, but most analysts think it is only a matter of time before a request is sent from Kabul. In the recently-published report, McChrystal says: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.” But serious changes will be required. These will have to address what McChrystal calls “The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials.” The US general also admits “ISAF's own errors”. Bear in mind, though, that the report was written before the recent presidential elections went awry.

Monday

James Forsyth

Decision time for Obama

Bob Woodward has the scoop that General McChrystal’s review of Afghan strategy calls for more troops. McChrystal is direct, stating that “ISAF requires more forces” and that “inadequate resources will likely result in failure”. He is also clear that these troops are needed now, "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." McChrystal has yet to present his request for more troops to the Pentagon but it is clear that he will ask the administration for considerably more troops. Obama now has to decide whether he will back the new commander he put in place and give him the tools he needs.

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Mr Obama, tear down these missile sites

Today Barack Obama publicly tore down the missile installations that George W Bush put up in the Czech Republic and Poland. The system was ostensibly meant to counter threats from Iran, but given the swift creation of missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in the wake of Russian’s invasion of Georgia, Moscow’s elite never bought into this rationale – and perhaps rightly so. The strength of Russian feeling has always been clear. The latest Russian National Security Strategy states that the “ability to maintain global and regional stability is being significantly aggravated by the elements of the global missile defence system of the US”.

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Obama and Cameron: who thought what about whom?<br />

Remember that New Statesman article about Obama calling Cameron a "lightweight"?  Well, the Journalist Closest to Obama, Richard Wolffe, has a different take.  Here's what he told the Today programme this morning, courtesy of the ever-alert Andrew Sparrow: "He had a strong impression, a strong reaction, to both Cameron and Brown. It was right at the end of his foreign trip. And he was really taken with Cameron. He and his aides thought that he had energy and verve, a dynamism that suggested he was a good candidate – remember this was a candidate at the time, not a president. And there was bonding that took place which you might not expect of two people at the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The language of political debate

A great spot by Tim Montgomerie over at ConservativeHome, who highlights this Wall Street Journal graphic on the words that both sides of the US healthcare debate should be using to score a rhetorical advantage.  For instance, it suggests that the pro-Obama team should say "rules" rather than "regulations", while the President's opponents should attack the system for being "too profit-driven" and "too bureaucratic": As Tim says, words have power.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Will the Obama administration deny requests for more troops in Afghanistan?

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, two of the people involved in devising the surge strategy in Iraq which so transformed the security situation there, have a strong piece in the Weekly Standard arguing that the Obama administration is in danger of repeating in Afghanistan the mistakes the Bush one made in Iraq: not giving the commander on the grounds the tools they need to do the job. The Kagans’ concern has been caused by strong hints from the Obama administration that it is not minded to send any more troops to Afghanistan whatever the review initiated by the new US commander there, General McChrystal, says. (The deadline for McChrystal to make his requests has been pushed back until September). If McChrystal thinks he needs more troops, he should not be denied them.

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Is General Jones on his way out?

With Obama’s administration gradually filling up, problems appear to be brewing at the centre. Though picking ex-General James Jones as a National Security Adviser was seen as a smart move, associating the general’s wide experience and bi-partisan appeal with the young president, it may be turning out not to be so clever after all. President Obama continues to rely on his campaign advisers, principally Denis McDonough, nominally one of Jones’ deputies, and Mark Lippert, the Chief of Staff of the National Security Council and a confidant of Vice-President Biden. Both aides have a close personal bond with the President.

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Obama’s bear-hug

Presidents Obama, and Medvedev (and Prime Minister Putin) seem to be having a good summit. Nuclear talks look like they have gone well, there has been mention of expanding NATO's transit for its Afghan mission through Russia, and the mood - crucial at any summit - has been reasonably good. Nobody stared into any one else's soul, but the leaders nonetheless agreed, as Bush and Putin did a few years ago, that the US and Russia can do business. But is a rapprochement between the US and Russia really possible? Dmitri Trenin, of Carnegie Russia, says the West and Russia share many threats. But he also says that anti-Westernism is an "obsession" on the part of Russia's elite.

Friday

Alex Massie

Diet Guantanamo!

Watch this one run and run. First up is Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings: "If we have transparency and accountability, than you can leave Gitmo just like it is," he said. "The physical plant of Guantanamo is built to hold people. And therefore I argue and will pursue the administration to give a look at legislation that I am developing that will give transparency and accountability and may satisfy our allies as well," Hastings said, noting that he would enable groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross to have better access to monitor the facility. Hastings has yet to seriously discuss the proposal with the White House but asserts that it could be a viable solution given that the new Gitmo comes with a guarantee of no torture. Hastings, a former U.S.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Special Relationship Fretting: Ambassadorial Edition

Time's Swampland blog pokes some fun at Britons getting "in a tizzy" over the apparent news that Obama is, like his predecessor, going to reward one of his fund-raisers by appointing Lou Susman to be the United States' Ambassador to the Court of St James. Apparently, Susman shouldn't worry. Once the Brits get over their disappointment, they'll stop seeing him as Not-Oprah and remember he's Close-to-Obama. Well, maybe. And it's true, of course, that much of the fretting and hand-wringing over the so-called "Special Relationship" is absurd. So much so that it's become one of the press's favourite pantomime acts.

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Time Changes Everything

It wasn't so long ago that senior Labour politicians were suggesting that Gordon Brown should use the coup of the G20/Obama visit to bounce straight into an election. It seems bizarre now, but such was the confidence of the Labour Party in those early days of the economic crisis that there were close allies of the Prime Minister urging him to go to the polls this spring. Their only concern was that it might be too late. The ideal time for those urging a snap election (the second in a series of elections that never were) was February. Now, the idea that Brown will do anything but wait until the last minute seems inconceivable, but anything's possible. The other point that now seems obvious is that President Obama is no longer such a novelty.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Obama to World: Drop Dead!

The White House could easily have granted the press conference Gordon Brown so clearly craved. Though there was something a little craven, a touch humiliating about much of the build-up to this week's Prime Ministerial visit to Washington, it's reasonable to suppose that, in this instance at least, Brown may have been treated a little shabbily. The kindest way to view this is that the White House is so focused on economic fire-fighting that it has little time for diplomatic niceties; alternatively it sends a tough reminder as to who wears the trousers in this relationship partnership. There'll be none of this Athens to Rome nonsense, Mister Brown. (Was it just a coincidence that the BBC went big on Macmillan visiting JFK in their footage last night?

Friday

Alex Massie

Obama and Israel

Melanie Phillips makes a pretty remarkable claim at the end of this post: The fact is that Israel faces the nightmare scenario that it now stands alone -- and against America. Whether through naivety, ideology or rank malice, there is now a fifth columnist in the White House, undermining the cause of the free world. The vast majority of Americans who staunchly support Israel's struggle to exist in the face of genocidal attack, and understand only too well its role as the front line of defence for the free world, need to become aware of what is being done in their name. As polemic, this is fine stuff. But as analysis I confess I find it somewhat exaggerated.

Monday

Alex Massie

Obama and Churchill

So Obama has said he doesn't feel the need for his presidency to be reinforced by the presence of a British-government-owned bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office. As my friend Tim Shipman reports, the bust, loaned to George W Bush after 9/11, is now in the care of the British Embassy in Washington. This is a good thing in as much as anything which damages the Cult of Churchill in the United States is to be welcomed. One can desire this without in any way compromising one's respect and appreciation for Churchill's wartime heroics. But the Churchill Cult in the US  - especially amongst conservatives - distorts American views of Britain and, for that matter, history: every foreign policy crisis is seen as a test one may pass (like Churchill) or fail (like Chamberlain).

Thursday

Alex Massie

The Limits of Presidential Power

Writing in the FT yesterday Martin Wolf observed: It is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome. Commenter IanC agrees with Wolf, as does Porkbelly who writes: Obama could easily have used his electoral mandate to impose his will upon the House Democrats when the bill was crafted; instead he let them cobble together a malodorous mess of every left-liberal pet project and constituency gimme. Now there's something to this. The bill is indeed larded with goodies the Democrats have long-desired. And it may well, as I say, have adverse long-term consequences while also failing to solve short-term problems.

Alex Massie

Notes from a Parallel Universe

Courtesy of Joe Klein: Karl Rove: House Republicans had the wisdom to continue to talk to the Obama White House. This made them look gracious, even as the president edged toward a "my way or the highway" attitude. Pete Wehner: Right now President Obama and his team look at times amateurish and somewhat overmatched by events. But look! Obama just passed a gargantuan piece of legislation. It may be a bad bill and it may not achieve its stated aims but it's a "stiumulus package" of about the size Obama said was needed, passed about the time by which he said it needed to be passed. Whether one approves of the package is beside the point; the point is that the new President has cleared his first legislative hurdle.

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Who’s sorry now?

President Obama showed that it was possible to apologise with good grace over his appointment of Tom Daschle and now the masters of the financial universe are falling over themselves to follow his lead. Somehow he turned the fact that he "screwed up" to his advantage, though how many times he can get away with this ruse in future is open to question. The sight of the men from RBS and HBOS making their excuses for "screwing up" the economy of an entire country was pretty hard to watch. The difference is that people like Obama. At times like this you have to turn to the tabloids to fnd an expresssion of real fury. Sue Carroll put it rather well in her Mirror column today. I wonder if the bankers were reading her before they went before the Treasury Selct Committee today.