What Goes Around Comes Around

What goes around comes around. Sometimes that is good, sometimes it is not. What happened in Britain’s Parliament yesterday was one of those times when it is not.

Yesterday Fox News posted a story about the vote taken in Britain yesterday regarding getting involved in Syria. The article points out that with the exception of Vietnam, Britain has historically gone to war as an ally of the United States whether or not Britain had any national interest in the dispute. For Britain to refuse to get involved in Syria as it was becoming apparent that America probably would was a new direction in Britain’s foreign policy.

So what is this about? Up until 2009, when President Obama was sworn into office, American and Britain had a ‘special relationship.’ Britain joined us in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though they had no national security interest in either place.

The article at Fox News states:

For instance, although Britain recognized that Al-Qaeda posed a serious threat to the UK, we intervened in Afghanistan because, as Tony Blair succinctly stated at the time, an attack on America was seen as an attack on Britain, such was the strength of the Special Relationship.

With Iraq throughout the nineties and in 2003, America decided Hussein needed dealing with, Britain stepped up. When Clinton expressed broader foreign policy objectives and decided Milosevic needed taking care of in Serbia, Britain was there. There were other reasons too, but Britain’s attitude was “where our ally goes, we go.”

Let’s look at what has happened since 2009. One of President Obama’s first moves in office was to return the bust of Winston Churchill to the British. That bust had been presented to President Bush after 911 as a reminder that Britain stood with us. It was insulting to return it. President Obama declared that America has no stronger ally than France. France? Not a single senior member of the Obama administration attended the funeral of Margaret Thatcher. When Argentina started making noises about wanting to take over the Falkland Islands, the Obama administration, speaking through then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sided against their best ally, and with Kirchner’s Argentina, demanding Britain sit down with Argentina and negotiate sovereignty of the British territory under the pretense of neutrality.

The Obama Administration has treated Britain shamefully. It is no wonder that he did not get the support for intervention in Syria from the British Parliament when he needed it. The President who came into office saying that he was going to ‘undo the damage George Bush had done to America’s image around the world’ has now succeeded in making even America’s friends dislike her.

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