President Obama’s visit to Europe this week is giving him the opportunity to bury once and for all perceptions that have dogged his administration from the outset: that the US has lost interest in Europe, and has put a higher priority on resetting relations with an authoritarian Russia than it has on the completion of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. Such completion, of course, has been a goal of successive US administrations since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After a state visit to Britain to reset the “special relationship,” and a stop in Ireland – ideal for showing US support for the EU and euro given Ireland’s debt troubles – he is using today’s G8 Summit in France to show that the US and Europe can work together effectively on global issues, especially on supporting reform and democracy in the broader Middle East. This renews former President Bush’s emphasis on these themes at the US-hosted G8 Summit in 2004.