Europe Contemplates Life After America

Met dank overgenomen van J.H. (Han) ten Broeke i, gepubliceerd op dinsdag 5 april 2016.

Disillusionment with Barack Obama coupled with concern that his legacy could help put Donald Trump in the White House has now entered respectable European political dis­course. The notion reflects profound doubts at Europe's core about a country with both a president who broke his word and failed to attack Syria for its use of poison gas - dam­aging American credibility as the West's ultimate recourse to justice by military intervention - and a leading candidate for the White House whose campaign resounds with brutality, bigotry and igno­rance of the world.

Referring to the article, Han ten Broeke, the foreign-policy spokesman of the Netherlands' rul­ing Liberal party and chairman of the Dutch Parliament's armed- ser­vices commission, told me that Mr. Obama should have listened to "Joe Biden's admonition that big nations don't bluff. His making red lines vanish surely eroded the belief in Western intent to stare down vil­lains and stand up for world order."

Read more