Restoring our image around the world. . . Part II

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, initially dubbed Sarko the American for his pro-U.S. stance, is finding it much tougher to deal with Washington than he had anticipated and is recalibrating his policies accordingly.

Stung by perceived snubs from U.S. President Barack Obama and encouraged by the growing importance of the G20, Sarkozy is increasingly reaching out to non-aligned states in an effort to extend France's international influence.

He has forged especially close ties with Brazil, is seeking alliances in central Asia and is intensifying his activities in the Middle East, using multi-billion dollar military and civilian nuclear trade deals as his calling card.

During the early days of the war all we heard out of the Left was that George W Bush was acting "unilaterally" and being a "cowboy" because we entered the conflict alone without a coalition of nations along with us.

Now the reality was that we were heading an alliance of a number of nations but it seemed that in whatever the Left uses for a mind no coalition could possibly be a true coalition unless it numbered France as one of its members.

The reality of the situation was that the Left's attitude that no possible action of the United States could be considered legitimate unless it was done in concert with France was born out of their certain knowledge that the men who were leading France at that time would never sign off on any genuine effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

The reason for that was that those French leaders were literally on Saddam's payroll. Millions of dollars from the Oil for Food Program were being siphoned off by Saddam and part of that money went into the pockets of French politicians as payment for acting as obstructionists against any plan which would put the UN imprimatur on a plan to oust Hussein from power.

We were told with confidant, even smug, assurance by the Democrat party the George W Bush's invasion of Iraq (in concert with a number of other nations and with congressional approval) had done terrible damage to our international reputation and our relationships with important allies - like France.

We were told with confidant, even smug, assurance by the Democrat party that the election of one Mr. Barack Hussein Obama (otherwise known as the little tin messiah) to the office of President of the United States would instantly heal our torn international relationships and restore America to a place of respect on the world stage.

So why then is the little tin messiah alienating our European allies?

First he issues a series of calculated insults to the United Kingdom, discarding the bust of Churchill which was a gift from their government to ours after 9/11, giving the Prime Minister a cheap box set of DVD's which won't even work in a European DVD player and giving the Queen an iPod with his own speeches on it - as though the greatest gift he could impart to the sovereign of the British Empire was a collection of his own gaseous teleprompter readings.

Then at the United Nations he undercuts France and Germany's plan to publicly confront Iran's pint-sized lunatic president with yet more evidence of his nations nuclear weapons program - so that it won't diminish the impact of his big speech (yet more gaseous teleprompter readings) to the world body.

Now we find that he as so alienated France that they are seeking military and nuclear deals in the Middle East and central Asia.

How's that "Hope and Change" working out?