A short time ago I drew a contrast between Putin’s energetic diplomatic moves in the Syrian crisis and Obama’s passivity.
We had another example last week.
On
Friday 4th March 2016 Putin had a telephone conference with the leaders
of the European powers: Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, Cameron
of Britain and Renzi of Italy.
This is the same group of leaders Obama spoke to in a video conference on 23rd February 2016.
That
means that Putin has now spoken to both the Arab leaders on 24th
February 2016 and to the European leaders on 4th March 2016.
Moreover he has spoken to one European leader who was not included in Obama’s video conference.
This is Renzi of Italy, who has been getting increasingly critical of the way in which he feels he is being cut out of the big decisions by Merkel.
The
initiative to include Renzi in the telephone conference apparently came
from the Europeans. The fact however remains that Putin included him
in the discussions whilst Obama did not.
Obama
has not completely vanished from the scene. For example he recently
met in the White House with the King of Jordan. However it is
impossible to avoid the impression that he is becoming increasingly
disengaged - limiting his contacts with foreign leaders and failing to meet his top military and security advisers.
This
contrasts with Putin who looks fully on top of the situation and
confidently in control, speaking to all the key foreign leaders - with
the important exception of President Erdogan of Turkey - and meeting regularly with his Security Council.
The
fact that the European leaders after talking to Obama still felt they
had to speak to Putin in itself shows who holds the initiative in this
conflict.
No comments:
Post a Comment