{UAH} Allan/Pojim/WBK: Xenophobia in Zambia: Why it won’t happen in East Africa - Comment
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Why Obama loves the queen more than her country
LONDON – At their Friday press conference here, President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron together used the phrase "special relationship" more than a dozen times. At times they cast it in almost romantic terms: Obama professed his "love" for Winston Churchill. Cameron declared his "passion" for the Anglo-American partnership.
But when Obama delivers a grand address about Europe on Monday, he'll do it from Germany — not Britain.
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The first European country to join American strikes against the Islamic State in Syria? Not Britain but France, which plays a bigger military role in the anti-ISIS campaign that Obama calls his top priority.
When Obama wants to crank up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, he calls German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It was then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy who persuaded him to bomb Libya in 2011.
Though Obama's affection for Great Britain is clear — on Friday he called Queen Elizabeth "truly one of my favorite people" — it's hard to name a way it has driven his foreign policy.
"There's a big difference" between Obama's relationship with the UK and that of predecessors like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, said James Rubin, a former State Department spokesman in the Clinton administration who now lives in London. In past years, "the special relationship had a more powerful impact on international relations, definitely," Rubin said.
Obama aides insist that the rising influence of Germany and France doesn't make Britain any less important to the U.S., they say — or the relationship any less special.
And British officials note the key supporting role their country has played in everything from Obama's Iran nuclear deal to fighting Ebola.
Yet an implied point of Obama's call for Britain to reject a proposed exit from the European Union is that the country isn't significant enough to remain a key U.S. partner if it's no longer part of the EU. Obama warned that a post-"Brexit" U.K. would be "at the back of the queue" when it comes to striking coveted trade agreements with the U.S.
Liam Fox, a conservative Member of Parliament and former British defense minister, told the BBC on Friday that Obama was threatening to give America's special friend a "punishment beating" if it makes the wrong choice.
Winston Churchill coined the "special relationship" phrase 70 years ago, calling the alliance between Washington and London, which fought two world wars together and was beginning to stare down the Soviet Union, a foundation of world peace.
These days it seems to revolve as much around nostalgia and America's fascination with the British monarchy. Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, with whom Obama dined at Kensington Palace on Friday night, have jacked up royal-mania in the former colonies to levels unseen since Princess Diana's mid-1990s heyday.
But analysts on both sides of the Atlantic admit that Britain's strategic importance to Washington has ebbed, thanks to London's waning economic clout and its steadily contracting military.
"The US−UK 'Special Relationship' is in decline," wrote Xenia Wickett, head of the US and the Americas Programme at the London think tank Chatham House. "What is clear is that increasingly the UK is not 'first among equals' in Europe but 'one among many' for the United States."
The reassessments cut both ways: When China proposed an Asian Infrastructure Bank early last year, a body viewed by Washington as an unwelcome alternative to Western-led institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Britain defied the protests of angry Obama officials and quickly signed up.
But the real doubts have been cast by Obama himself.
In an Atlantic magazine article published last month, Obama cited the British parliament's refusal to back his proposed 2013 air strikes on Syria as a key factor in his decision to abort the attack. That was a sharp contrast to parliament's overwhelming 2003 vote to join George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Obama went further, the Atlantic reported, breaking a core diplomatic taboo by telling Cameron privately that the "special relationship" would be in danger if Britain didn't boost its contribution to NATO.
Obama officials quickly shot down the idea, calling the relationship as strong as ever (and noting that Britain has since met its NATO commitment, though barely).
Obama and Cameron get along well personally, and hit the links for a round of golf Saturday despite the chilly London air.
In their press conference Friday, the two men invoked the "relationship" over and over.
"When it comes to the special relationship between our two counties, there is no greater enthusiast than me," Cameron said.
"It's the depth and the breadth of that special relationship that has helped us tackle some of the most daunting challenges of our time," Obama said. And so on.
And yet it's Germany that plays the central role in Europe's economy, refugee crisis, and dealings with Russia over Ukraine. France has adopted a hawkish foreign policy, keeps a larger active military, and, after the ISIS attacks in Paris, has cranked up its intelligence ties with Washington.
Rubin argued that, even if the U.S.-U.K. partnership lacks the clout of its joint interventions in Kosovo and Iraq or leadership of NATO against the Soviets, the relationship remains special thanks to the deep political, mliitary and diplomatic links between the governments. "British military units are embedded in our units. The diplomats share cables with one another," Rubin said.
But sometimes it seems like the real glue of the relationship is the monarchy that America rebelled against nearly 250 years ago, which retains a symbolic power in the U.S. that no other country can match.
Obama perhaps unwittingly underscored the symbolic basis of the relationship on Friday with an anecdote about Her Majesty the Queen.
The president had clearly relished his lunch date with Elizabeth earlier that day, after being welcomed to Windsor Castle with trumpets and, in a bit of surreal theater, getting chauffeured to the door by the 94-year-old Duke of Edinburgh.
Standing next to Cameron, Obama told the story of a White House aide whom he said "never leaves her hotel room" on foreign trips because she's so busy working. "She has had one request the entire time I have been president," Obama said. Could she come along to Windsor Castle "on the off chance that she might get a peek at Her Majesty the Queen"?
Obama was able to grant the wish, and the aide got to shake the Queen's hand, leaving her so dazzled "she almost fainted."
"That's the special relationship," Obama said. Even if it's not quite what Winston Churchill had in mind.
In the economic boom the region has seen, everyone started from scratch, after most historical advantages were wiped out by political calamities.
There were hardly any newcomers who came in and overtook established business incumbents. Because no one was overtaken, as happened in peaceful countries like Zambia, and prosperous South Africa, there is less resentment.
East Africa is reaping some of the sour-sweet benefits of old conflicts and social and economic collapse.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter@cobbo3
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