Iraq crisis prompts Obama, Cameron to revisit U.S.-Britain ties
President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron began Thursday by making a joint call to action in a newspaper piece against barbaric terrorists in Iraq. They also visited an elementary school in the morning before attending the NATO summit, where they were seatmates, to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.
A year after an embarrassing stumble in U.S.-Britain relations over Syria, the two leaders seemed determined to show that their relationship is, indeed, still special.
Obama came to Wales this week searching for allies to confront Islamic State militants, and Cameron appeared the most eager to volunteer. The prime minister declared that he had not ruled out airstrikes on the group's forces in Iraq and Syria, echoing language frequently used by the White House to preserve the option of increased military action. He vowed, as Obama has in recent days, not to shy away from confrontation.
Countries like Britain and America will not be cowed by barbaric killers, Cameron and Obama wrote in their joint opinion piece in the Times of London. We will be more forthright in the defense of our values, not least because a world of greater freedom is a fundamental part of how we keep our people safe.
The Iraq crisis is shaping up as a do-over for a prime minister and a president whose relationship has been overshadowed some say haunted by the exceptional and problematic closeness of two of their predecessors, Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush.
Like many Americans, Britons remain wary of new military engagements after more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the British, there is the added perception that they were led into war by a leader too eager to please his American counterpart.
British newspapers' characterization of Blair as Bush's poodle remains fresh.
Obama and Cameron have tried to demonstrate a personal closeness. They are about the same age and even have had some of the same advisors, despite the fact that Cameron, a Conservative, and Obama, a Democrat, disagree on some political matters.
The men regularly joke awkwardly about sports in public. But no one argues that they are in sync in the Blair-Bush mold.
Cameron, said one analyst, is trying to run from the bond the previous pair had during the early Iraq years.
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Iraq crisis prompts Obama, Cameron to revisit U.S.-Britain ties