Antinuclear

Australia fawns over Obama, leader of a declining Power

Her new stance on uranium exports to India –  – is a repudiation of many former statements.

The real measure of Mr Obama’s visit is that he is spending only 26 hours here

The most important part of the visit appears to be the announcement that marines will be based in the north,…..Mr Obama’s soft political leanings make him perfectly suited to oversee the decline of the American era. He wants to use us to exert some regional muscularity, having lost the ability to do it economically.

Let the fawning begin, The West, 16 Nov 11 Gillard’s fawning is on wrong side of history. An American president, reduced to the status of a media-driven celebrity rather than the political and economic saviour he promised to be, is on the eve of making his belated first visit to Australia.

Recent history will not repeat itself here so much as happen in reverse. What Mark Latham so delicately described as “a conga line of suckholes”… will now form on the flipside of politics in Canberra…..

Just for once, it would be nice if we kept our distance from America. Respectfully…… Ms Gillard has become a policy chameleon, rarely letting former principles stand in the way of a new position if it might advance her electorally.

The only remnant of the Prime Minister’s left-wing past is in the colour of her hair – and that clearly isn’t real any more either, changing tone as often as her policy positions. Her new stance on uranium exports to India – a blatant attempt to try to create a belated point of difference with the Greens – is a repudiation of many former statements.

“Our government has had a longstanding policy, which is not in any way directed at India but is a longstanding general policy, that we supply uranium only to countries that are signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” she told a press conference in September 2009.

That was a year after the UN-linked International Atomic Energy Agency approved the US Congress decision to co-operate with India on nuclear issues, despatching the NPT to complete irrelevance.

The real measure of Mr Obama’s visit is that he is spending only 26 hours here. Even those foreign policy wonks who always put Australia at the centre of world events surely can’t miss the significance of such cursory attention.

The most important part of the visit appears to be the announcement that marines will be based in the north, a move clearly provoked by the rise of China that effectively requires us to choose sides in a regional power play.

Mr Obama’s soft political leanings make him perfectly suited to oversee the decline of the American era. He wants to use us to exert some regional muscularity, having lost the ability to do it economically.

To reverse one of Ms Gillard’s favourite allusions, she should not put us on the wrong side of history.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/paulmurray/post/2553/comment/1

November 16, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News