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US president welcomes rise of new economic powers and claims Atlantic alliance has 'broken the Taliban's momentum'
Barack Obama urged the transatlantic alliance to reinvent itself in order to retain global leadership at what he called a "pivotal moment" in history.
Speaking as the first American president to address both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall, Obama sought to make sense of the turmoil of the past 10 violent years and portrayed the coming era as one of opportunity for the west.
He denied that globalisation and the rise of new world powers would led to a decline of the US and Europe. On the contrary, "the time for our leadership is now", the president said, arguing that the spread of pro-democracy movements across the Arab world, represented a triumph for western values, as did the emergence of new powers such as China, India and Brazil, which were growing because they were embracing western market principles.
A changing global arena with new players, the president insisted, was all the more in need of what he called an "indispensable" alliance. He noted that both the US and the UK had just gone through a "difficult decade that began with war and ended in recession", but he made it clear that he believed that the worse was over.
Obama's address in Westminster Hall, a medieval survivor of the 1834 fire that destroyed much of the parliament buildings, was an infrequent event: Obama's was only the 10th there to both Commons and Lords since 1939.
Four of those were from the Queen and one from her father, George VI, on the 1950 opening of the new Commons chamber. The four foreign leaders invited to speak before Obama were Pope Benedict XVI (2010), Nelson Mandela (1996), Charles de Gaulle (1960) and the last president of France's third Republic, Albert Lebrun (1939).
"I'm told the last three speakers here have been the pope, Her Majesty the Queen, and Nelson Mandela, which is either a very high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke," Obama said at the start of his address.
It was a speech that sought to capture a spirit of optimism after a painful decade, but it did so at the risk of alienating the emerging powers he mentioned, who do not see the need for the US and Europe to cling to "leadership", a word which to them sounds like hegemony. Critics closer to home, meanwhile, are likely to focus on Obama's apparent readiness to relegate some current and very pressing problems to the past.
His claim that the Atlantic alliance had "broken the Taliban's momentum" in Afghanistan and was "preparing to turn a corner" will be put to a severe test this summer. The claims are based on the idea that Nato is building Afghan security forces that will soon be able to hold their own, but many observers say that goal remains distant and may even be unachievable in a country with deep ethnic divisions and a longstanding intolerance of centralised control.
Many experts in the field do not believe that the killing of Osama bin Laden has fatally weakened al-Qaida. Others worry that the North African revolutions are not predestined for democracy but are perhaps drifting towards new forms of authoritarianism or an Islamic resurgence.
Similarly, the perfunctory reference to the Middle East – where Obama simply said "we stand united in our support for a secure Israel and a sovereign Palestine" – obscured the stagnation of the situation there, as well as growing tensions between the US and Europe as the Palestinians prepare to take their unilateral call for recognition to the United Nations in September.
The president's speech was perfectly tuned for an audience for whom the "special" or "essential" or "indispensable" alliance is an article of faith. It was also an audience which mostly views the fundamental changes to the world order of which the president spoke with anxiety or even dread. Obama offered reasons to be cheerful, if only at a price (a doubling of investment in higher education) that the president's hosts know they cannot currently afford.
It was clear that this tone of reassurance was only achieved by obscuring an unpleasant truth. America, Britain and their allies are entering the brave new era carrying with them many of the problems left unresolved in the old one.
"A global economy that once stood on the brink of depression is now stable and recovering. After years of conflict, the United States has removed 100,000 troops from Iraq, the United Kingdom has removed its forces, and our combat mission there has ended," Obama said.
"In Afghanistan, we've broken the Taliban's momentum and will soon begin a transition to Afghan lead. And nearly 10 years after 9/11, we have disrupted terrorist networks and dealt al-Qaida a huge blow by killing its leader – Osama bin Laden."
As a result, the US and Britain were now entering a "new chapter in our shared history", in which there would be new kinds of threats characteristic of a globalised world, such as transnational terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation, famine and global pandemics.
At the same time, the Atlantic powers would have to deal with those threats alongside emerging powers on the world stage. But the president's central message was these new developments did not necessarily mean a decline in American and European influence, as western pessimists have suggested.
The days when Winston Churchill and Franklyn Roosevelt "could solve the world's problems over a glass of brandy" had gone. "In this century, our joint leadership will require building new partnerships, adapting to new circumstances, and remaking ourselves to meet the demands of a new era."