French President Nicolas Sarkozy flanked by President Barack Obama, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Associated PressFrench Atomic Pique -- Wall Street Journal
Sarkozy unloads on Obama's 'virtual' disarmament reality.
President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news about Tehran's secret facility to build bomb-grade fuel. But now we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America's handling of the announcement.
Both countries wanted to confront Iran a day earlier at the United Nations. Mr. Obama was, after all, chairing a Security Council session devoted to nonproliferation. The latest evidence of Iran's illegal moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon was in hand. With the world's leaders gathered in New York, the timing and venue would be a dramatic way to rally international opinion.
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My Comment: The key phrase in the above article is the following ....
..... President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been "frustrated" for months about Mr. Obama's reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn't want to "spoil the image of success" for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy.....
"Didn't want to spoil the image of success" .... hmmmm ..... I will let that sink in.
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal .... finally, someone in the American press is pointing out news stories from Europe that describes bluntly what some of our allies in Europe are thinking of when it comes to President Obama's Iran policy.
Being a Canadian who always follows what the Europeans are saying, I can give everyone an additional heads up. News reports from France and England pale in comparison to what Eastern Europeans and Russians now think of President Obama. I have had to spend time with my relatives in Russia defending President Obama (a pattern of behavior that I find very strange for someone like myself) .... but they are developing a contempt for him, and their contempt mirrors exactly how the media in Europe are now portraying him.
This news has been completely under reported here. While I would usually let this go by, I have noticed that this altitude is now starting to impact the politicians in these countries .... politicians that President Obama will need in the future when it comes to negotiations on missile defense, arms reduction, North Korea, and Iran.
While President Obama is a very effective communicator, he is only effective here. In Europe, he is failing ..... and failing fast.