Hysteria over Biden’s Trashing of the U.S.-British ‘Special Relationship’ Continues

Sept. 3, 2021 (EIRNS)—The British Empire continues its hysteria over the prospect of losing its American muscle. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace made headlines when he declared in an interview with The Spectator that the U.S. and the U.K. are not superpowers. When asked about criticism from the military and others that the decision to build and deploy two aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy was an absurd overstretch from a country in denial about still being a global power, Wallace said: “I think it really goes to what the definition of what a global power is. It is obvious that Britain is not a superpower. But a superpower that is also not prepared to stick at something isn’t probably a superpower either. It is certainly not a global force, it’s just a big power.”

Britain, meanwhile, can act with others. “I take the view that the future of foreign policy around the world will involve more bilateral than trilateral alliances depending on the problems we face. So, West Africa may be a more French/British thing, East Africa may be the same.” In other words, military interventionism must go on, with or without the U.S.

As for Europe, there are two issues, Wallace argued, one of which is Europe’s relationship with the U.S. The other is staying power. “The question for the West—whether it is Ukraine, whether it is the South China Sea or upholding international laws—is resolve. That is the question: do we have resolve?” he said, sounding like Maggie Thatcher in 1990. He, like Tony Blair, supposedly dislikes the term “forever war,” yet like Blair, that’s what he promises. “I think standing up for the values you believe in, standing up to protect your interests, is a forever commitment. It’s unending—so be prepared.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab’s predecessor as U.K. foreign secretary, warned on Sept. 3 that “a dangerous fault line” had emerged in the U.S.-U.K. special relationship, describing the withdrawal from Kabul as catastrophic and forced on the U.K. Hunt said allied troops left in such ignominious circumstances that it “was a sobering moment for anyone who cares about liberal values and open societies,” reported the Guardian.

Writing in his local paper, he said: “The result of this chaotic, hurried withdrawal has been to hand the country back to the very government that sheltered the 9/11 bombers. The truth, however, is that 457 British service men and women did not lose their lives simply to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack. Nor did they support the dispiriting isolationism of ‘America first’ of President Trump to which his successor appears to be pandering.

“Our servicemen and women died in defense of a set of deeply held values that said girls should be entitled to the same education as boys, courts should be independent of clerics, and journalists should not be imprisoned if they speak truth to power. If President Biden believes in those values too, it is time we heard it.”

The conniption over the future of the “special relationship” extends back to the Washington Post Anglophiles. Editorial columnist Marc Thiessen tries to play Margaret Thatcher by demanding Biden stiffen his backbone. In a column posted yesterday, he describes the failure of the Europeans, at the Aug. 17 virtual G7 meeting, to convince Biden to extend the end date for the evacuation operation. “When European leaders are desperately trying to stiffen the U.S. President’s spine, America is in trouble,” he says. After noting Biden’s delay of 36 hours in returning a phone call from Boris Johnson, “the damage Biden has done extends far beyond the ‘special relationship’ with Britain. Our NATO allies were in Afghanistan only because America was attacked on 9/11, and there were more NATO than U.S. forces in Afghanistan when Biden made the decision to withdraw—so his surrender undermines the credibility of the entire alliance.” Thiessen claims that after the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, which he also attributes to Biden, it was Europe that suffered the terrorist blowback.

“Yet Biden seems oblivious to the damage he is doing. In a news briefing before the evacuation was ended, Biden declared, ‘I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world’ and insisted that in fact the opposite was true—that our allies believe ‘we’re acting with dispatch,’ he concludes. “This is delusional. Our allies are aghast at Biden’s display of weakness and his indifference to their interests. The damage he is doing to our alliances and our credibility in the world is irreparable.”