THE TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama has declared that America has "failed to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world" and has "shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" towards its allies.
His speech in Strasbourg went further than any United States president in history in criticising his own country's action while standing on foreign soil. But he sought to use the comments, which amount to a mea culpa for recent American foreign policy, as leverage to alter European views of America and secure more troops for the war in Afghanistan.
He declared that there had to be a fundamental shift on both sides of the Atlantic. "America is changing but it cannot be America alone that changes."
Addressing a crowd of some 2,000 mainly students from France and Germany, Mr Obama said: "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.
"Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."
He then balanced this striking admission with a tough message to Europeans that blaming America and using its actions as an excuse to avoid tackling the global Islamist threat was unacceptable.
"But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognising the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad."
In a speech which his aides billed as a commitment to rebuild transatlantic relations by offering an olive branch directly to young Europeans, he offered himself as the figure who could bridge the gap that had grown over the eight years of President George W. Bush's administration.
"On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common," he said. "They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated.
"They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America." >>> By Toby Harnden in Strasbourg | Friday, April 3, 2009
