Commenting on the future of transatlantic relations, Anthony writes:
The plain fact of the matter is that there are structural issues at play that will ensure tensions remain. One of the great pieces of historical revisionism spurred by the Bush 43 tenure is the conviction that has emerged that under Clinton Euro-American relations were going well. They weren’t. Most of the time it was poison. Even between Clinton and Blair things turned fairly sour…
We should hope for the best with the emergence of the Obama administration. And at the very least it’ll give me an excuse to start having a go at the Continentals again. But managing expectations, so to speak, is undoubtedly the right way to go. There are plenty of issues that have the potential to cause ructions.
That’s not to say, incidentally, that the problems are ALL structural. This is an argument generally employed by Bush 43 apologists to support the notion that it doesn’t matter how undiplomatically the US government acts because the results will be the same and it should be resisted.
We should hope for the best with the emergence of the Obama administration. And at the very least it’ll give me an excuse to start having a go at the Continentals again. But managing expectations, so to speak, is undoubtedly the right way to go. There are plenty of issues that have the potential to cause ructions.
That’s not to say, incidentally, that the problems are ALL structural. This is an argument generally employed by Bush 43 apologists to support the notion that it doesn’t matter how undiplomatically the US government acts because the results will be the same and it should be resisted.
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