EUROPA IS pining for what she believes is unrequited love when it comes to the United States. Having fallen head over heals for Barack Obama, Europe is now feeling jilted.
In a paper entitled “End of a Honeymoon,’’ the German Marshall Fund’s Constanze Stelzenmuller recently wrote: “It seemed as though a fairytale had come true’’ when America elected the president of Europe’s dreams. “But in all myths and fairytales, wish fulfillment is, of course, the stuff of tragedy,’’ he wrote. Obama may be “a man of Western values,’’ but he was not formed by the Cold War’s east-west divide, and, as he said himself, he is the “first Pacific president. ’’
The press made much of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to the United States, describing it as fence-mending, and saying that Obama finally granted the French president the special gesture he craved: a meal for the French first couple in Obama’s family dining room. Sarkozy, the most pro-American French president in a long time, had felt miffed because the Obamas had chosen to eat at a left bank restaurant instead of in the Elysee Palace.
In Britain, where a parliamentary foreign affairs committee recently called for a reassessment of the traditional bonds that bound America and Britain, the reaction was vociferous. “The Special Relationship Is Over . . . Now Stop Calling Us America’s Poodle,’’ headlined the Guardian. The committee warned that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s eagerness to join Bush in attacking Iraq had hurt Britain’s standing in the world. The subservient “poodle’’ image “is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the United Kingdom, ’’ the parliamentarians said.
The “special relationship’’ that Franklin Roosevelt formed with Churchill against Hitler was tested in 1956 when President Eisenhower told Britain, France and Israel to stop their invasion of Egypt and restore the status quo ante. While France took home the message that the United States could not be trusted, the British decided never again to let their foreign policy drift too far from that of the United States.
Britain did not send troops to Indochina as the Americans would have liked, and Charles de Gaulle warned Washington that they were headed towards the same defeat as had the French. But Blair’s decision to back Bush in Iraq still rankles.
The hurt feelings go deeper than the perceived sins of Blair. Obama has been criticized for returning the borrowed bust of Churchill that Bush had displayed in the Oval Office. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was criticized for reiterating what has been American policy since 1948: that the United States hopes Britain and Argentina can settle their Falkland differences themselves. Ronald Reagan helped Britain in its recapture of the Falklands, but that seemed less important than the fact than some in Reagan’s cabinet had unduly worried about Latin American relations.
To an American this all seems a bit silly. For the first time in generations there is no crisis in Europe requiring America’s attention, no issue that deeply divides. Europe has troops fighting beside Americans in Afghanistan, albeit not as many as America would like. Historical and cultural ties remain strong.
But, as British author and journalist William Shawcross points out, Britons feel Obama does not sufficiently appreciate their contribution in Afghanistan. “We’ve lost a lot of people.’’ The Poles and Czechs, too, feel aggrieved that Obama withdrew a promised missile shield as a gesture to please Russia. “Obama seems kinder to his enemies than his friends,’’ Shawcross said.
According to Francois Heisbourg of France’s Foundation for Strategic Research, the problem is that Obama has not paid enough attention to the symbolic aspects of the transatlantic relationship. He showed in Cairo, and in his speech to Iran, that he well understands the power of symbolism, but in his treatment of Europe he hasn’t demonstrated the same respect. Not showing up for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall provides an example.
However, Heisbourg says all that narrative is just a proxy for the deeper worry Europeans have about their own shortcomings and “the decline of Europe.’’ It is the realization that power and wealth in the world is hurrying eastward. For the first time in centuries Europe is no longer history’s leading lady.
H.D.S. Greenway’s column appears regularly in the Globe. 
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