Barack Obama is off to a turbulent start in his first term as US president. If he wants to ensure a second term, he will have to prove that he has the diplomatic skills necessary to be the leader of the free world.
After welcoming British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Washington in an unremarkable fashion, President Obama will make his first visit to the UK since his election. There he will do his best to ensure that the special relationship between the US and its strongest ally continues.
Whenever I think of that relationship, I can't help but think of the scene in Love Actually when Hugh Grant's usually-diffident Prime Minister summons the courage to stand up for his country's pride in the face of an American president with a superiority complex:
"I love that word 'relationship.' Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship; a relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain. We may be a small country, but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that."
President Obama's visit to London and Strasbourg will be anything but. With the rest of the world still questioning his backbone and America's role in international affairs, Mr. Obama must set the record straight.
For the British perspective (albeit a conservative, Thatcherian one), check out Nile Gardiner's analysis of Obama's slights against our nation's top supporters in today's Daily Telegraph.
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