Us politics

Saturday

James Forsyth

How the US presidential campaign will change American foreign policy

Whoever wins the Republican nomination and takes on Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election is going to campaign hard on the issue of the US national debt and the idea that constantly running deficits is dragging the nation into decline. This is going to have a serious impact on the foreign policy debate in the US. It is striking that John Huntsman (pictured with Barack Obama), the former US ambassador to China who was governor of Utah and is running as a middle of the road Republican, has chosen to introduce himself to voters in New Hampshire with criticisms of the cost of the Libya mission. He said, ‘I

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Keeping the States interested

David Cameron has a good relationship with Barack Obama, which will be on display when the US president visits Britain shortly. They speak regularly and frankly and their senior advisers are in near-constant contact. The idea that the Lib Dems would foist a more “Love Actually” policy onto the coalition has come to naught. Yet Britain’s influence in Washington has waned. This is no fault of the Prime Minister. In fact, his personal diplomacy has probably slowed-down the process. Instead it has to do with structural changes in the US: the coming to power of a “pacific” President, the importance of US-China ties, the emergence of the Tea Party. As

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Yes he Cain?

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Have you ever heard of Herman Cain? Neither have most Americans. The latest Gallup polling shows that only 21 per cent of Republicans even recognise his name, despite the fact that he would like to be their candidate for the Presidency. Yet that could all be about to change for the man who used to run Godfather’s Pizza, thanks to an acclaimed performance in the first debate of the primary season on Thursday night. Big names like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump have yet to declare their candidacy, and so did not take part, while Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich (who have

Monday

James Forsyth

How the US pulled it off

The veil is being pulled back on how the United States tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden. The New York Times reveals that the intelligence trail started with information obtained from a Guantanamo Bay detainee about the courier that Bin Laden used to pass and receive messages to the outside world. This is proof that the public debate about the utility of Guantanamo is far too glib. This courier was then tracked down last August to the compound, in Abbottabad which was so secure and grand that the Americans realised that it could well be Bin Laden’s hide-out. These suspicions were reinforced when it became clear that this million

Peter Hoskin

What Obama said about Bin Laden and Pakistan before he became President

After the events of today, the video above has fresh resonance. It is from the first presidential debate in 2008, and features Barack Obama defending his previously stated view that “if the United States has Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, top level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.” Turns out, in this case, he was true to his word.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Obama contra Trump

You thought Barack Obama had finished with Donald Trump by releasing a copy of his long-form birth certificate? Not nearly. At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night — video above — the US Pres took every opportunity he could to bait his bouffant-haired baiter. From the tongue-in-cheek music video that kicks of proceedings — “I am a real American,” it declares against clips from the Transformers and Karate Kid — to the even more tongue-in-cheek attack on Trump’s credentials that follows; this was humour wielded as a weapon. And, yes, Trump was in the audience to witness it all.    Obama also runs through some of the likely Republican

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Why Gitmo ought to be closed

It is hard to feel anything but nauseous when reading the Guardian’s continuing special report on Guantanamo Bay, which started yesterday. The paper has released hundreds of classified files which were obtained last year by Wikileaks, including detainee assessments prepared between 2002 and 2009 to summarise what the government knew about each detainee — and they do not paint a pretty picture. Some detainees are clearly guilty as sin. But others seem to have been caught in the crosshairs of conflict. One example seems to be Abdul Badr Mannan, who was arrested in Pakistan and turned over to US forces in the belief that he was affiliated with al-Qaeda. According

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

Obama's budget: faster, but not further, than Osborne's

Barack Obama’s budget plan has become a political debating point on this side of the Atlantic. Ed Balls set the ball a-rolling in an article for the Guardian this morning, which effectively claimed that the President isn’t planning to cut the deficit as quickly as George Osborne is. “The truth is that it is Osborne himself who is isolated,” is how he pugnaciously put it. But the Tories’ Matthew Hancock has since responded — on Coffee House, as it happens — arguing that, actually, the Obama Plan is simpatico with what Osborne is doing. By way of hovering above the red-on-blue scrap, we thought we’d put together a comparison of

Matthew Hancock-Mp

Labour are drawing the wrong lessons from America

The global debate about how we live within our means is moving fast. I spent a week in Washington while Congress and the President hammered out their deal on this year’s budget. The deal was significant because all sides agreed on the need to cut spending now. After days of brinkmanship, they agreed to £38 billion in-year cuts. Significant, perhaps, because America has now started to tackle its huge deficit. But everyone agreed it is a small downpayment ahead of a much bigger debate to come.   What’s fascinating for us here is that President Obama’s proposals are to cut the deficit slightly faster than we are here. Congress would

Monday

David Blackburn

Standard & Poor’s bombshell

A mute, almost disbelieving response (except on the Markets) has met Standard & Poor’s announcement that the US government’s fiscal profile may become ‘measurably weaker’. The credit rating agency has put a ‘negative outlook’ on the US’s AAA rating; the accompanying report said:    “We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policy makers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013. If an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation does not begin by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns.” Robert Peston tweets, “S&P’s announcement that outlook

Friday

James Forsyth

Balls in fiscal isolation

Ed Balls has long said that America is the right comparison for Britain when it comes to how to deal with the deficit, contrasting the Obama administration’s fiscally loose policies with Osborne’s plan for fiscal tightening. This comparison has always been flawed; the dollar is the world’s reverse currency which gives Washington far more fiscal flexibility than HMG. But, even leaving that aside, the Obama administration is now — albeit under Congressional pressure — about to start cutting.   By 2015, Obama’s plan will have reduced the US deficit by 8 percent of GDP. Osborne’s plan sees Britain reduces its deficit by 8.4 percent by 2015. Indeed, from next year

Freddy Gray

A word for Mitch

In the magazine’s cover piece this week (read it here or subscribe from just £1/issue), Richard Littlejohn described the rather feeble assortment of Republican contenders for next year’s presidential elections. But he left out Mitch Daniels, the Governor of Indiana, who seems to be emerging as a favourite among American conservatives.   Daniels hasn’t yet declared his candidacy, and at first glance he comes across as a dweeb. But it would be foolish to underrate him. In 2008, against a tide of Obama-mania, Daniels won the Indiana governorship with ease. He got more votes, in fact, than any candidate in the state’s history. The secret of Daniels’s success is his

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Meanwhile, in America…

We really oughtn’t let the weekend pass without some mention of political events across the Atlantic. As you’ve probably heard, a US government shutdown was avoided on Friday evening, and all thanks to a budget compromise which saw Barack Obama slash a cool $38 billion from his spending plans. Although the debate over who has credited or discredited themselves is still ongoing, it’s striking that the Republicans — urged on by the Tea Party corps — achieved around two-thirds of the cuts that they demanded. Yet disaster, or at least the prospect of it, has still not been averted. The Tea Party has already claimed several fiscal scalps along the

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Obama sketches out the limits to American involvement in Libya

There was one aspect of Barack Obama’s Big Speech on Libya last night that was particularly curious: for a President who is trying to downplay American involvement in this conflict, he sure went in for good bit of self-aggrandisement. The amount of references to his and his government’s “leadership” — as in, “At my direction, America led an effort with our allies at the United Nations Security Council to pass an historic Resolution” — was really quite striking, at least to these ears. I suppose it’s all about mollifying those voices who argue that the US Pres hasn’t done enough, quickly enough. But it’s hardly going to endear him to

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Obama's nervousness makes life difficult for him and his allies

Gingerly, gingerly — that’s how the Americans are approaching the presentational battle over Libya, if not the actual campaign itself. There is no bombast in the official broadcasts from Washington, nor categorical intent. Instead we have Robert Gates emphasising, as he did yesterday evening, that the US will soon handover “primary responsibility” for the mission to us or the French. Or there’s Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that “potentially one outcome” is for Gaddafi to stay in power (see video above). The idea of regime change, or of deeper US involvement, is being downplayed all round. What’s clear, perhaps even understandable, is that Obama

Friday

Freddy Gray

Hillary the hawk

Intervention it is then. Cue lots of politicians walking around with rousing West Wing music in their minds’ ears. This is the part where they get to play the good guys. Until something goes wrong, and they are bungling idiots again. Of course, it’s good for everyone to feel that a bombing campaign in Libya is a multi-lateral, UN decision – not an Iraq. But if this turns into a long campaign, American airpower will be expected to do the vast majority of the work. And while Obama may be reluctant to engage on a third front, there are plenty of enthusiasts in Washington – none more so than Hillary

Saturday

Daniel Korski

Obama backs Cameron on no-fly zone

Everyone knows that a media narrative is a difficult thing to change. So No.10 must be annoyed that so many newspapers, from the Telegraph to the Independent, are suggesting that David Cameron’s response to the Libya crisis has been “embarrassing,” and rejected by the US. But the Prime Minister would do well to stay the course and ignore the media for a number of reasons. First, just because US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is sceptical about a policy does not mean it is wrong. Somehow, the US Defence Secretary’s words are now taken as gospel in the British media and the PM is meant to repent immediately. Why? So what

Friday

Daniel Korski

Harriet 'shambolic' Harman

I’ve spent ten minutes reading the same passage and still don’t understand what it means. It comes from Harriet Harman, quoted in the Independent, criticising the government’s Libya strategy: “The response to the terrible events in Libya has been a shambles. The key to their shambolic response lies in their ideology. If your perspective is that government is a bad thing and you want less of it, you’re not going to be on the front foot when the power of government is exactly what is needed.” Do you get it? Is the Labour MP saying that her party would have harnessed the power of the state, principally the military, and

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

British foreign policy needs to promote democracy

After a week of hesitation and well-publicised problems evacuating British citizens from Libya, the government has led the international community’s response to the crisis. The decision to move HMS Cumberland into position was astute, as was the authorisation to rescue the people stranded in the dessert. At the UN, British diplomats have been drafting most of the key resolutions and now David Cameron has out-hawked everyone by saying he’d be willing to contemplate a no-fly zone. US lawmakers have asked the Obama administration why they have not been as swift as the UK. As a Bosnian-born friend of mine said last night: “If only David Cameron and William Hague were

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

What difference will sanctions make?

Slowly, haltingly, the West decides what to do about Gaddafi. The latest news is that, having broken his silence over Libya a few days ago, Barack Obama is now imposing sanctions against its despicable regime: freezing assets, blocking transactions, that sort of thing. It follows a package of sanctions, including an arms embargo, that Britain and France have proposed to the UN. Although these sanctions are better than nothing – the West shouldn’t house Gaddafi’s slush funds, nor transfer weapons in his direction – they are of limited actual worth. Yesterday, the Mad Dog was parading the parapets once again, promising death for the protestors. You suspect he is unlikely