Barack Obama’s state visit has renewed the British establishment’s infatuation with all things American. At one level, what’s not to find impressive? The hero of the United States 2008 presidential election, the articulate and reflective – if somewhat dispassionate – orator, the cautious but effective reformer. Above all, there is the fact that he is not George W Bush.
But, while Obama may well be the “noblest Roman of them all”, he is still a Roman. Thus far, some of his record is positive. He has extended health cover to many more Americans – albeit with a health system which takes them to the level of the reforms of David Lloyd George and Otto von Bismarck in the early 20th or late 19th centuries. He has piloted a stimulus package through the US Congress – admittedly while it was still under Democratic control. He is steadily bringing American troops home, and is understandably reticent about new military ventures. He has a more measured policy for the Middle East and is prepared to stand up to the Israeli government. But he has often seemed only partly engaged in developments in the region. And his response to the “Arab Spring” has been halting and inconsistent.
And then there are the omissions. Obama has not launched a serious onslaught on corporate power. His financial reforms have been more rhetorical than practical. He has been hesitant about using American influence to take forward any global economic governance agenda in the G8 or the G20. And he has not exploited the pulpit of the presidency to raise the quality of the political debate in America, which remains crude and partisan while a populist anti-government and xenophobic movement has thrived since his election.
So, with all the enthusiasm that Obama arouses, there are questions to be asked and reservations to be expressed. But not in the British media. The tone was set by his conversation with Andrew Marr. This was not an interview. This was Marr virtually grovelling on all fours. Marr could have pressed Obama on the rampant corruption in Hamid Karsai’s regime in Afghanistan, or the contrast between the intervention in Libya and the muted criticism of Syria, and silence about Saudi Arabia, or how the President intended to continue pressuring Israel on its settlements. He did not. Instead we got Marr salivating about the 30 minutes watching events unfold in Osama bin Laden’s compound and the joys of “shooting the breeze” with the Queen. Even Obama seemed slightly embarrassed by this abject fawning.
And so it continued all last week. Short of a royal wedding, there is nothing that brings out the old deference in the media like American celebrities. They even started to buy the idea that the “special relationship” was back. Channel 4 News talked about the end of the period when Britain had been the American poodle and the return of a “partnership of equals”. The news outlets are merely continuing the obsession with “Americana” – political, economic and cultural – which has dominated the media for 50 years. The Americans make it easier for us, offering undemanding fare and all in our own language. British politicians were no better. Last year, David Cameron had begun to talk of a more mature, realistic relationship rather than the constant demand for reassurance that it was still “special”. Shortly before last year’s general election, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee had tried to lay the whole concept to rest and recognise that Britain was part of a regional partnership with the US, and that the Americans would inevitably pursue their global interests in building and strengthening other partnerships.
Last week put us firmly back in the nostalgia zone. The relationship is now more than “‘special”, it is “essential”. Cameron and Obama will lead the world towards the sunlit uplands of liberal democracy. Our security services will work even more closely together – an alarming notion for those who dare to question the point of some of our security obsessions. For Cameron, Obama’s visit was a public relations dream. There were no tangible results from the talks and that the hoped for transatlantic endorsement of the spending cuts did not materialise. But for few moments it seemed that Britain really was the President’s best friend and America’s most trusted ally. Anyone who had hoped to see a payback for Cameron’s endorsement of John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008 was severely disappointed.
The British establishment will be free to carry on in the delusion that we are a world player, not a middle-ranking European
power whose declining influence can only be sustained through the clout we wield first and foremost in Brussels. Perhaps not coincidentally, William Hague chose this time to join some other European Union foreign ministers in their criticism of Baroness Ashton, the EU’s High Representative, and to call for the activities of the External Action Service, which he accused of “mission creep”, to be reined in. However, the criticism of other foreign ministers was not that Ashton and her service were doing too much, but too little. This seems not to matter to British ministers, basking in the syrupy words of the President, who will have drawn his own lesson from his visit: that Britain remains an ally so supinely faithful that it can be counted on to the point of being taken for granted.
