How good it made us feel to see our president cheered in Europe by both the street and his pairs! Not since John F. Kennedy had we seen anything similar. But one thing marred the picture: Obama recognized America's mistakes and shortcomings, but then proceeded to lecture the Europeans on what he perceives to be theirs. If the Europeans were right to criticize past administrations - and not only the two Bushes - for a multitude of sins, when a new administration pretends to break with past conduct it should not ask them to join us in future conduct that is similar to the policies they rightly condemned.
Obama's Afghanistan project will not be accepted by the Europeans unless and until he spells out the real reasons behind it: access to Southwest Asian oil and natural gas without passing through the Russian Federation. Pretending that terrorist attacks, whether in Europe or the U.S. are a reason to go to war against two entire countries, (Afghanistan and Pakistan, for all practical purposes) is not going to cut it. A single cost/benefit analysis would show that: so many dead in terrorist attacks, so much infrastructure damaged, vs. what it costs to keep tens of thousands of boots in a foreign land, give me a break.
European economies started to go bad to the extent that they allowed themselves to be seduced by American financial practices, and now they insist on pulling back. This state of affairs is hardly likely to encourage them to follow the American lead when it comes to combatting Al Qaeda or its affiliates. The signing by President Hamid Karzai - our nominal ally - of legislation that puts women's rights back where they were under the Taliban is a headline writ large on the world stage: you will not conquer us culturally. And Al Qaeda's war is a cultural one.
