Europe Contemplates Life After America Officials wake up to the fact that the U.S. under Obama is no longer a reliable guardian against chaos.By John Vinocur
Disillusionment with Barack Obama coupled with concern that his legacy could help put Donald Trump in the White House has now entered respectable European political discourse. The notion reflects profound doubts at Europe’s core about a country with both a president who broke his word and failed to attack Syria for its use of poison gas—damaging American credibility as the West’s ultimate recourse to justice by military intervention—and a leading candidate for the White House whose campaign resounds with brutality, bigotry and ignorance of the world.
Norbert Roettgen, chairman of the German Bundestag’s foreign-affairs commission, pointed to a possible Obama-begets-Trump link last week. Mr. Roettgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party, said the situation meant U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere were right to express their serious concern about America.
“Paradoxically, Trump is completely inward-looking,” Mr. Roettgen told me. “But he touches on a question of American pride. It’s there that many voters, in terms of the U.S. role in the world, feel that the country has lost considerable ground under Obama. What they see is Obama’s weakness. For example, his allowing the Russians to militarily establish the upper hand in Syria.”
Although polls late last year showed strong French support for sending ground troops within an international coalition to fight Islamic State, and Mrs. Merkel has said “military efforts” are needed as the first step in defeating the Islamist terrorists, Mr. Obama hasn’t dealt convincingly and head-on with the challenge.
“The damage is done,” said a senior European security official during an hour’s conversation after the murderous March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels. Over these past years, he made clear to me, America’s credibility as a reliable guardian against chaos has been broken.
“The United States’ relative power has decreased in relation to Russia and China,” the official said. “You can only play the American [guardian’s] role when you have communality at home. But I’m not sure the United States is ready to restore this or is able to. Vladimir Putin is present at the places where America and Europe are weak.” CONTINUE AT SITE
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