A CLINTON BLUNDER – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  Talk-show host Mike Scully alerts us to a sharp column by Nile Gardiner, in Britain's Telegraph, on still one more foreign-policy blunder by the Obama administration.

Hillary Clinton was just in Argentina.  Argentina and Britain are feuding again over the Falklands, the small island chain just off Argentina's eastern coast, but owned by Britain.  The U.S. has, properly, taken a neutral position on the dispute.  But Clinton seemed to change that position in a way that downgraded Britain, which this administration does as a hobby:

The transcript of Hillary Clinton’s press conference in Buenos Aires with Argentine President Kristina Kirchner last night, has just been released by the State Department, and it is a real eye-opener. Her remarks represent an astonishing propaganda coup for the Peronist regime in its dispute with Britain over the Falklands, with Washington brazenly backing its position.

Argentina has been pressing for negotiations.  Britain has said, in effect, that there's nothing to negotiate.  The Falklands, Whitehall says, are British territory. 

But Clinton's comments in Argentina clearly put the U.S. in the Argentinian camp:

"...we want very much to encourage both countries to sit down. Now, we cannot make either one do so, but we think it is the right way to proceed. So we will be saying this publicly, as I have been, and we will continue to encourage exactly the kind of discussion across the table that needs to take place."

Gardiner comments:

The secretary of state, a highly skilled political operator, knows exactly what she is doing here. She is giving her full support for the official stance of Buenos Aires, despite the fact that Great Britain has made it clear that the sovereignty of the Falklands is non-negotiable. She makes no reference at all to the fact that Argentina recently threatened a blockade of the Falklands, or that its close ally Venezuela has been threatening war against Britain.

Hillary Clinton’s dire performance in Buenos Aires was not only an appalling display of appeasement towards a corrupt and authoritarian anti-American regime, which barely has the support of 20 percent of the Argentinian people. It was also an astonishing betrayal of the United Kingdom by her closest ally, and yet another slap in the face for Britain from the Obama administration.

COMMENT:  Let's face it.  Obama has no use for Britain, which he associates with past colonialism.  It's interesting that he doesn't seem to have the same hang-ups about some of the world's dictatorships, including those of Latin America.

We must, of course, be sensitive to the feelings of Latin Americans, but this heavy-handed, blundering approach was not the way to do it.

March 4, 2010