Obama as European?

For John, BLUF:  May sound like a complement, but isn't.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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In The New York Times, a couple of days ago, was this opinion piece by Mr Clemens Wergin.♠  Based on his experience as a German Newspaper reporter and editor, he asks, "Is Obama’s Foreign Policy Too European?"

BERLIN — I have long been a critic of the German foreign policy debate — of its freeloading on the American security umbrella, coupled with moral grandstanding whenever the Americans did things their way; of too much analysis of past events and not enough thinking about how to get things right in the future; of its tendency to take words as a substitute for deeds.  That’s why I have usually given the Americans the benefit of the doubt:  At least they took on problems nobody else was willing to tackle.

But then, at the height of the Syria conflict and just after yet another of Barack Obama’s speeches, I suddenly understood the problem with this American president and his foreign policy.  He sounded just like a German politician:  all moral outrage, but little else to help end one of the most devastating civil wars of our age.  President Obama, I thought with a sigh, has become European.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Per The New York Times Mr Clemens Wergin has been a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times since the fall of 2013.  Mr. Wergin is the foreign editor for the German newspaper group, Welt, including Die Welt, Welt am Sonntag, and several other newspapers. In addition to overseeing the newspapers’ foreign policy coverage, he writes the foreign policy blog Flatworld.