You can tell a lot about the path a presidency will take by the first decisions a president makes. Fresh in the office, any new leader is very conscious that his early decisions will set the tone and the public image of his presidency.
Realists will observe President Barack Obama’s early decisions with a deal of concern for the future of America.
Mr. Obama promised change. Few have detected just how radical that change has already been in the foreign-policy arena in particular.
It is worth remembering that as Mr. Obama stomped the presidential campaign trail, he gave only one speech in a foreign country. As the location for that speech, he chose Berlin, capital of the nation that dragged Britain, America and the rest of the world into the two greatest wars in history.
There was something portentous in that choice. For of all the moves President Obama is making, it is those regarding America’s relations with the nations across the Atlantic that will prove to have the most devastating effect on its future.
This is a moment of enormous importance for the U.S. and the world. In the wake of America’s massive economic decline, a struggle is unfolding to establish the new global order. In the process, the Obama administration is being grandly fooled into yielding up irrecoverable ground.
The President’s First Moves
The new administration made itself plenty busy with other initiatives before addressing its relations with Europe.
Writing for the Guardian newspaper, Martin Kettle declared on January 30, “Never mind the vaunted first 100 days. The first 10 days alone have already seen an opening to the Muslim world, the abandonment of military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, the dispatch of a senior Middle East envoy, the unveiling of a new green agenda, the removal of the abortion bar on foreign aid programs, an eye-wateringly large fiscal stimulus package, major moves to increase government transparency, and … a decisive change of approach towards revolutionary Iran.”
By the president’s second day in office, it was becoming apparent that this is a new appeasing administration that risks gravely endangering America’s future. Consider.
President Obama’s first telephone call was not to any of America’s traditional allies, nor to the leader of any established nation, but to the leader of a non-state, the Palestinians, the declared enemy of the nation of Israel.
Those “major moves to increase government transparency” refer to an action by Mr. Obama on the second day of his presidency, when he issued an executive order to create new Freedom of Information Act rules, making it harder to keep the workings of government secret. The extent to which this will impact America’s security is yet unclear. However, it has a nasty ring about it; it appears to be borne of the same mindset that gutted the cia under the Clinton administration and made the struggle for national security harder.
The same day, the president made clear via a draft executive order that he intends to close the Guantánamo Bay terrorist detention facility within a year, release some of its remaining 245 accused terrorist detainees, and transfer others to different sites for trial. This sends a signal to enemies that America’s days of getting tough with those who threaten the nation with terror are over.
The new president’s first television interview was given to a television station sponsored by a nation whose religion seeks to overthrow traditional Judeo-Christianity and impose its own teachings on the world, a nation whose ruling class has dirtied its hands in supporting terror against Israel, Britain and the United States: the Saudi-sponsored Al Arabia tv network.
Finally, the Obama administration chose to reveal its anxiously awaited foreign-policy hand. And what location did the president choose? Interestingly, it paralleled the choice he had made in speaking abroad on the campaign trail. The administration made its statement at a global security conference, held February 6 to 8, at the city of Munich—in Germany.
Conference chairman Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger said he was proud that President Obama again chose a German city from which to first air details of his foreign policy. That sounds an awful lot like a spider luring the fly into its web. Why? Because biblical prophecy indicates that eventually, it will not be Washington calling the tune on America’s foreign policy—but Berlin!
Setting America Up
Germany’s vice chancellor, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is no great fan of either the U.S. or the previous American president. Nevertheless, at this high-profile forum on global defense and security, he set an expectant tone in his opening address with a nod to the new Obama administration, declaring that “The window of history had been opened for a while … with a new U.S. president who offered new thinking on the whole spectrum of disarmament and security policy” (Munich Security Conference, February 6).
All sensed that an appeasing administration now rules Washington at a time when American power is on the wane. A new conciliatory tone was evident. This served to mask the true intentions of each major nation: to strengthen its individual national power, forging backroom alliances to isolate the U.S. and counter American military might.
Some of the better observers noted certain realities surrounding the Munich Security Conference. Before the conference, under the apt headline “Searching for a New World Order,” Spiegel Online made this remark: “Our current, terribly interesting times ensure that this year’s Munich conference will attract unprecedented international attention. It will provide pointers as to what will be possible during Obama’s first year in office—and what not” (January 30).
It became apparent at the conference that the U.S. is being squeezed in a foreign-policy pincer movement between two imperialist powers, Germany and Russia. Germany’s Vice Chancellor Steinmeier and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are playing a game, each intent on cementing a strong anti-American alliance with the other. While the Obama administration is working to appease America’s enemies in lieu of confronting them, the U.S. is being set up as the fall guy for German and Russian power plays.
America to Europe: Stand Up!
In his speech at the conference, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden laid out the parameters for the Obama administration’s foreign policy. In it he emphasized that the American government’s “new willingness to engage in dialogue was combined with the expectation that the partners of the United States stand up more often for their shared values and objectives. In Munich this was seen as a clear invitation to provide more military support to the U.S., for instance regarding Afghanistan” (Munich Security Conference, op. cit.; emphasis mine throughout).
This announcement would have been very good news to the German power elites. They have been quietly seeking to strengthen the German presence in Afghanistan for some time—notwithstanding German media opinion to the contrary. Germany views a stronger presence in Afghanistan and a revived involvement in Middle Eastern security as being vital to advancing its interests to control Iran and gain access to Middle Eastern oil.
Severing a Historic Relationship
As soon as President Obama appointed his new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, Frank-Walter Steinmeier became quite persistent in seeking her ear. The day she was confirmed on January 21, Steinmeier quickly dispatched a letter of congratulations. He followed up with a telephone call the next day, with events in the Middle East very much on his mind. Barely a week and a half later, Steinmeier had hightailed it to New York to meet her directly.
The fact that Secretary Clinton had hosted British Foreign Secretary David Miliband only two hours before meeting with Steinmeier apparently didn’t bother the German vice chancellor. Miliband’s visit was given scant media coverage; as the Telegraph noted, “It has been said that the new president does not share the affinity for Britain of his predecessors, while in speeches since his election he has lumped Britain in with other European allies” (February 4). Though the Telegraph called the Miliband visit “something of a coup for Foreign Office officials, after speculation that the special relationship with the United States might weaken under Mr. Obama,” realists understand there is little reason to celebrate. Britain is losing its national sovereignty and becoming a mere appendage of the European Union. Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, its clout in international relations is shriveling. This, President Obama clearly understands.
The reality is that, despite Mrs. Clinton acknowledging the historic nature of the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain, that relationship in President Obama’s mind is secondary to that which he sees Germany and the EU fulfilling. This is especially the case when it comes to helping to get the U.S. off the hook in the Middle East and Afghanistan and becoming more directly involved in nato- and UN-sponsored forays into foreign climes.
Yet in the whole equation of the foreign policy of the new radical-left American administration, nothing is more glaringly apparent than the severing of the partnership between the U.S. and Britain, a natural union of brother nations that joined to save the world from the tyranny threatened by two great world wars and a 40-year Cold War.
Each of the above foreign-policy maneuvers of the Obama administration drives another nail into the Anglo-American alliance. The mass media are largely ignorant of this radical shift in U.S. foreign policy!
The coming of the Obama administration has mortally wounded the natural symbiosis of diplomacy between Britain and America. This is a radical departure from the 200 years of mutual support and cooperation between the U.S. and Britain, particularly in matters of defense and security. The Blair-Bush years were the swan song for that strongest of natural, yet unwritten, alliances.
And which power stands ready in the wings to take full advantage of this break in the U.S.-Britain partnership?
None other than the European Union!
Slouching Toward Brussels
Journalist Martin Kettle astutely observes of President Obama, “If he seeks an effective global partner for his efforts on Iran, the Middle East, climate change or the restructuring of financial institutions, he will not look first to Britain …. He will look to the EU” (op. cit.).
There is a reason why Mr. Obama and his advisers chose Berlin as the only foreign city within which the presidential candidate would give a public speech as he stomped the campaign trail. Theirs is an isolationist portfolio. Increasingly, the Obama administration will seek to hasten the day when American troops will withdraw from their 65-year residence in Europe and hand European security over to Brussels/Berlin. In the process, the U.S. will continue to hand over its bases and its military hardware to EU control. This will spell disaster for both America and Britain in the not-too-distant future.
Martin Kettle declares the new reality that has come to the fore in international relations in the wake of the diminution of American power: “If you want peace in Sudan or Congo or Somalia, you have to want not just international aid but international peacekeeping. Existing peacekeeping efforts, though large and expensive, are also ineffective. Western engagement in these efforts would be controversial, but it could be very effective. Yet it will only happen—to the extent it happens at all—through the EU, not through nation states. There is a pressing need for an intelligent post-Iraq debate about how Europe can best develop, organize and use hard power” (ibid., emphasis mine).
When the light eventually dawns on this new American administration to reveal that the U.S. is fundamentally broke, it will increasingly, and willingly, hand over the security of Europe to the EU. This will accelerate the military agenda of the elites that frame EU foreign policy, in the process drastically upping the expression of EU “hard power.”
Additionally, it will encourage those who have long held to the idea that the European Union should provide a “peacekeeping” force to complete the surrounding of the tiny nation of Israel with a multination force intent on securing stability in the strife-torn Middle East.
This, as we have consistently pointed out over the years, is all prophesied in your Bible!
Do You See Prophetic Reality?
Put all this together with the reality to which former Clinton aide Dick Morris awakened last September—that the U.S. is already dancing to the European Union’s tune in its business and finance regulations—and the prophecies of the books of Daniel and Revelation leap into perspective!
The most radical of foreign-policy change in which the Obama administration is presently engaged is the breaking of the U.S.-Britain alliance that has maintained the peace of the world for the past 200 years. In the process, President Obama will be not only handing over the baton of “hard power” to the EU to fill the gap created by the breaking of the pride of Anglo-American power, he will be signing the death warrant of his own nation!
The first six months of this year feature a number of high-profile international conferences at which the new U.S. administration will be able to gradually reveal its shaky hand on its new diplomacy. In addition to the Munich conference, there is the EU summit in March, the April g-20 meeting in London, followed by the 60th anniversary summit of nato in June, which promises to be full of surprises.
Threaded throughout each will be a more strident voice from a Germany caught in deep crisis and in need of markets for its manufacturing industries. We predict that Germany will be invited to take on a more involved role in European, Middle Eastern and African security, a future reality that will lead to a revival of that nation’s heavy industries and prove to be the trigger to revitalize its currently deeply recessive economy.
If you fail to see these realities taking place before your eyes, it is because you need to understand the Bible prophecies that have declared their inevitability and their timing for these very days we are living through, right at this very moment!
Request a free copy of each of our booklets Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? and Daniel Unlocks Revelation for a detailed exposé of vital Bible prophecies for these times. And while you are about it, request our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It is the one book that places the Anglo-American alliance in its true perspective—past, present and future.
These three publications will serve you as constant aids as you seek to make sense of the present global turmoil. In fact, they will reveal to you the only source of real hope for a better future that lies just beyond the turmoil of today! •
