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Council Highlights
Nawaz Offers Views on Changing Pakistani Perceptions of U.S.
Shuja Nawaz, Director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, was interviewed on The Takeaway morning radio news program on the Pakistan flood situation. The discussion focused on the U.S. being the single largest donor of aid, and the potential for Pakistanis to shift their perceptions of America. Nawaz insists that the U.S. should stay the course with aid to Pakistan, but warns of the long-term effects of America's goodwill, stating that "changing image takes a long time."
Nancy Walker Addresses U.S. Africa Command Conference
Dr. Nancy J. Walker, Director of the Ansari Africa Center, gave the keynote address at Africa Command’s Senior Leader Offsite Conference in Starnberg, Germany on August 26, 2010.
South Asia Center's Shikha Bhatnagar Spotlighted
Shikha Bhatnagar's recent appointment as Associate Director of the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council, is yet another manifestation of a growing trend of second generation Indian Americans' advent into leading Washington, DC think tanks as senior policy analysts and associates.
Chuck Hagel Discusses START Ratification on RussiaToday
Atlantic Council Chairman Chuck Hagel was interviewed for RussiaToday on delays in ratification of the START treaty in both the U.S. and Russia.
FEATURED ISSUE
In August the sunny calm and quiet that is a Swedish summer will be shattered by the impact of Joint Direct Attack Munitions dropped by F-16CM Fighting Falcons from US Air Force Europe.
Obama Reaches Out to Chirac - Another Snub?
James Joyner | March 23, 2009
Fresh off the heels of snubbing Gordon Brown by not holding a joint press conference with him and giving him a gift that could have been purchased at Wal-Mart, Barack Obama has annoyed Nicolas Sarkozy by sending a mash note to former French president Jacques Chirac asserting that, "I am certain that we will be able to work together, in the coming four years, in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world."
Sarkozy is reportedly miffed and at least one cartoonist, Herve Baudry, is having a field day.
News of this was broken by Le Figaro on Thursday but the combination of the story appearing only in French (unlike every other major European country, there are no English versions of the major papers) and intervention of a weekend, the controversy is just catching steam stateside. The U.S. blog Monsters and Critics seems to have broken the story in English and a minor furor has broken out over this in the American blogosphere.
For its part, the administration has been silent on the matter, giving no indication as to why it has reached out to a 76-year-old man who is almost certainly retired from active politics. One presumes, however, that it was not a backhanded attempt to embarrass the incumbent president of France.
My colleague Jeff Lightfoot suggests that Obama was referring to Chirac's Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural Dialogue. CSM's Jimmy Orr thinks this a likely rationale as well and points to an article (also in French, naturally) in The New Observer explaining that Obama was merely sending a polite response to a letter Chirac had written him in his capacity as foundation head.
In any case, two things are clear: The Obama administration has been a touch tone deaf in the early going about the symbolism of its interactions with our European allies. And some foreign leaders have surprisingly fragile egos.
James Joyner is managing editor of the Atlantic Council. Cartoon by Herve Baudry.
Comments
zerObama's gotten off to a great start on his vow to make the rest of the world love us again, hasn't he?
I'd much rather be hated and feared than "loved" and ridiculed.
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