Obama puts his image first
Once again, President Obama shows that his “image” is his top priority.
Article from Telegraph:
The President is believed to have angered the European leaders by insisting on delaying a joint press conference until after he had chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council.
Mr Obama is said to have been worried the announcement would undermine the impact of his session on nuclear non-proliferation.
Details of the disagreement appeared to explain why Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy, the French president, took a harder line on Iran than the American leader at the meeting
The Prime Minister said it was time “to draw a line in the sand” on Tehran’s nuclear programme while the Frenchman mocked Mr Obama for the naivety of his “dreams” of eliminating nuclear weapons.
According to French officials, Mr Brown and particularly Mr Sarkozy wanted to make a declaration on Sep 24, either at the Security Council meeting chaired by the US president or just afterwards.
The Europeans considered that there was no better stage from which to tell the world that the three countries’ intelligence services had worked together to uncover an underground uranium enrichment facility under construction at Qom.
But Mr Obama did not want to “spoil the image of success” of his disarmament session, which passed a resolution to work towards a nuclear-free world and a host of measures designed to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stocks.
After much arm-twisting, Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy were persuaded to delay the announcement until the opening of the G20 summit the next day in Pittsburgh.
Their joint appearance on Sep 25 overshadowed declarations about shifting the balance of power from the G8 to the G20 and launching a framework to rebalance economic growth.
News of the disagreement came as Mohammed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was due to arrive in Tehran today [Sat].
He was expected to finalise a visit by inspectors to the enrichment facility within a fortnight, the allies have made progress in the prolonged impasse over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Very interesting newsweek article on Sarkosy and his “obsession” with Obama. http://www.newsweek.com/id/216240/page/1
I hope these two can work together.
Funny, an opinion piece is your best argument against Obama trying to protect his image. Hey, I wonder if Sarkozy is envious of Obama’s failed pitch at the Olympics. What was it…Oh…thrown out in the first round with only 18 votes.
Yup, Obama made history alright…First time for the U.S. in the history of the IOC.
Sarkozy must be real bitter today!
Proud Extremist:
What? No argument from me – just more opinion, speculation and “analysis” to go with the opinion, speculation, and “analysis” in the first article, with a few facts thrown into both articles.
Yeah – ironic. In the second article the author implies that Sarkozy is ever the leader, with Obama ever the “copycat”. In 2005 when the IOC was selecting the site for the 2012 Olympics, Paris, France was the heavy favorite to win, but England sent their head of state Tony Blair, who is believed to have tipped the scales in England’s favor just before the vote. In this case I am not sure if President Obama is copying France’s loss, or copying Blair’s visit for the final vote. That first round is brutal. Tokyo edged us out by 3 votes – 18, 22, 26, 28 – then all of our votes went to Rio (who was second to madrid in round 1) for round 2. I guess the bookies and odds makers don’t ALWAYS get it right. The favorite Paris did not win in 2012 and the favorite Chicago did not win in 2016.
BTW – it seems unlikely that President Obama’s efforts to make sure his announcement with Sarkozy and Brown did not step on the impact of the session he chaired at the UN were the reason that President Sarkozy took a harder line than President Obama. I suspect those are unrelated events. (that is, Sarkozy’s harder stance was his own doing, and had nothing to do with Obama’s timing of the meeting)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! That’s right PJ, everybody likes to copy Obama…the king of U.S. failures, which is why you have an OBSESSION with defending him. No wonder people around here are starting to ignore you.
All you have to do is listen to Obama’s speeches. Everything is “I”, this and “I” that. except when he is blaming others, of course.
cruz:
I think you missed the point of that newsweek article. It was asserting that Obama is always copying Sarkozy.