Obama's fans in Europe are in for a big surprise - by John Vinocur
If Barack Obama is elected president of the United States next week, he'll bring into office with him the advantage of not being pre-cast as a villain in Europe. As pluses go, it may be an impermanent one. The realities of American interests, American responsibilities and the American presidency mean that all the soft power instincts and readiness for multilateral mosh-pit politicking attributed to Obama by Europeans can quickly look imaginary. Obama is not Michael Moore transmogrified. He will fulfill no one's dreams of a capitulating, apologetic United States. On Iran, there is little indication that European public opinion is listening closely either when Obama says, "We'll never take the military option off the table." Or on Georgia and Ukraine, when Obama insists that they must be given plans for NATO membership "immediately." Or on Afghanistan when he complains that some NATO countries, like Germany, are present there but not sharing the missions with the most murderous risks.
David Sturtevant Ruder, a former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, America's market regulator, who has endorsed Obama, sees American capitalism eventually coming out of this "horrible situation" with a better version that's "a little tamer" and "a little more regulated." He added: "But the US is built on an appetite for risk. We don't want to be France."Almost surely, a newly elected President Obama would be too slick to tell the truth that way.
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