Obama and his European allies

John Rosenthal, in this article, notes the irony of history: by the time Barack Obama was elected U.S. president, having achieved prominence in large part by opposing the Iraq war, European leaders (Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Shroeder) who opposed the war most strenuously have been voted out of office, and others who supported it (Angela Merkel and Sylvio Berlusconi) have been voted in.

As Rosenthal notes: "... notwithstanding the Nobel committee’s condescending pat on the back for their disciple, Obama’s European role models are all gone. He is on his own now and should his pursuit of 'peaceful dialogue' give rise to a nuclear Iran and threats of greater and more terrible wars, this will be his responsibility."