The Editor for a German newspaper group, Welt, recently penned an op-ed for The New York Times. He articulated a surprising European perspective on President Obama’s “Europeanization” of America.
Referring to the Syrian civil war, Clemens Wergin wrote: “I suddenly understood the problem with this American president and his foreign policy. He sounded just like a German politician: all moral outrage, but little else to help end one of the most devastating civil wars of our age. President Obama, I thought with a sigh, has become European. Indeed, the less this president wants to get involved in something abroad, the more he dials up his rhetoric.”
Then Wergin discussed the European concept of “soft power” and the uselessness of soft power without something to back it up. He wrote: “While Europeans are loath to admit it, they know that European soft power often doesn’t work either – and that it is a luxury that they could afford only because America’s hard power always loomed in the background. And when they dropped the ball, America would pick it up. And therein lies the lesson to our American friends who seemingly want to become less involved and more European: There is no second America to back you up when you drop the ball.”
from The Hal Lindsey Report – July 18 , 2014
