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Kelly McParland: If Obama cant get along with Canada, who can he get along with?
President Barack Obama may not be everything his fans originally hoped he would be, but until recently hes at least appeared easy enough to get along with.Maybe the frustrations of office are getting to him. These days, he seems to be having just as difficult a time finding friends among foreign leaders and allies as he does with Republicans in Congress. Even before he cancelled an upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr. Obama found himself bickering with leaders with whom hed prefer to be on good terms. The U.S. sends Egypt more than $1 billion a year in military aid and worked closely with former president Hosni Mubarak, but on the weekend the de facto military ruler of Egypt hows that for a title? Julius Caesar could have claimed the same one accused Washington of abandoning the country. You left the Egyptians, you turned your back on the Egyptians, and they wont forget that, said Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. OK, Putin can be a pain, and Egyptians are more than a little volatile these days. But Mr. Obama cant even get along with Canada, which is like getting into an argument with Norway over a chicken recipe. For months the governments in Ottawa and Alberta have been sending representatives to sweet-talk Washington heavyweights on the merits of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would send Alberta crude to the Gulf Coast. There may be valid arguments against the pipeline though Mr. Obamas own State Department has shot down most of them but the negotiations had been friendly and respectful enough until Mr. Obama gave an interview to the New York Times openly mocking the jobs figures put forward by proponents. Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator, he said in the interview. There is no evidence that thats true. The most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two, and then after that were talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people. Two thousand jobs, he said, were a blip relative to the need. Gee, thanks, closest ally and strategic partner. Friendly countries love to be given the back of the hand when they offer a secure source of energy to a country that needs it. The Times gave a hint of the reason for Mr. Obamas displeasure: Washington would like Canada to adopt stricter emissions laws, giving him some political cover to approve a project that is opposed by Democrat-friendly environmentalists. But any number of sources suggest his evaluation of the job figures is well off the mark. And Canadians dont react any better to foreign pressure than do Americans. If Stephen Harper has been tardy as he certainly has in introducing tougher standards for emissions, hes hardly going to speed it up if it allows opponents to portray him as a toady to the U.S. president. Dealing with Canada should be easy compared to the mess Mr. Obama faces in Egypt. When the original rebellion against Mr. Mubarak broke out, Washington was caught between two unhappy choices: continued backing for Mr. Mubarak would put it on the side of an anti-democratic autocracy in the process of violently putting down a popular uprising. Siding with the revolt would mean abandoning a reliable ally in favour of militant Islamists. Posted by: Beavis 2013-08-10 |
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