UNDER THE BUS – AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  Barack Obama's willingness to throw old friends, allies, and even family members under the bus, especially during election campaigns, is well known.  Indeed, it's been reported that a bigger bus, with room for more casualties toward the rear axle, has been ordered.

But the tendency is serious, and often the throwees have been America's best foreign friends, like Britain, Canada and Israel.  Nile Gardiner, in London's Telegraph, reflects on the latest episode, this one involving the Brits:

As I noted in a piece earlier this week, Barack Obama has no interest in standing with Britain over the Falklands, declaring in a press conference in Colombia at the Summit of the Americas:

And in terms of the Maldives [sic] or the Falklands, whatever your preferred term, our position on this is that we are going to remain neutral. We have good relations with both Argentina and Great Britain, and we are looking forward to them being able to continue to dialogue on this issue. But this is not something that we typically intervene in.

Please note that Obama even gets the name of the islands wrong.  The Spanish name is Malvinas. 

The Obama presidency has made it clear that it views Britain and Argentina as equal allies. This, despite the fact that Great Britain is a world power that has fought alongside the Americans in almost every major US-involved war over the past 70 years (with the notable exception of Vietnam). In contrast, Argentina is an insignificant international actor, currently led by a kleptocrat anti-Western government, which has barely lifted a finger to help the Americans in the past.

Barack Obama's latest knife in the back for Britain – and there have been many - should be a wake-up call for David Cameron, whose recent trip to Washington was an undignified exercise in hero-worship toward a Left-wing president who doesn't even like the British. The prime minister should understand that Barack Obama is no friend of Britain and never will be. And nor is his Secretary of State, who has actively backed Argentina's calls for UN-brokered negotiations between London and Buenos Aires over the sovereignty of the islands.

COMMENT:  We get the sense that this is a growing feeling internationally – that Obama has no loyalty to America's closest friends, is ignorant of history, and contemptuous of the alliances that have aided our foreign policy.   Not a way to make and keep friends.

Obama snubbed Canada in rejecting the Keystone Pipeline, essentially sending pro-American Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper off to China to find another market for Canadian oil.

One can only think of what's in store for Israel, and even for America's Arab allies, like Jordan, in a second Obama administration.  The Arabs look at what Obama did to ally Hosni Mubarak of Egypt...who not only was shoved under the bus, but under the wheels of the bus.  Compare please to Obama's indifference to pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran in 2009, and his curious lack of passion about the horror in Syria, which has claimed more than 9,000 lives so far.

Add to this the weakness that Obama radiates as president and you have what we plainly see, a foreign policy in disarray. 

Can we afford a second term?

April 19, 2012