By Steve Hynd
Sigh. Despite it being counter-productive and highly unpopular with the electorate, the Tories have doubled down on Britain's poodle status.
New Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that getting a "grip" on Britain's military operations in Afghanistan would be his top priority on his first day in the job.
...Mr Hague also said the Government wanted a "solid but not slavish relationship" with the United States - saying the so-called special relationship remained of "huge importance". He added: "No doubt we will not agree on everything. But they remain, in intelligence matters, in nuclear matters, in international diplomacy, in what we are doing in Afghanistan, the indispensable partner of this country."
That "solid but not slavish" is, of course, just political pablum. The "indespensable partner", by being indespensable, will continue to run British foreign policy from across the Atlantic. Yet getting a grip on what's happening in Af/Pak is entirely impossible while following US policy, which is full of happy-talk and spin aimed at US voters rather than reality about conditions on the ground.
For a while,I honesty hoped Hague and Cameron would "get it". But obviously the neocon faction of new Chancellor Goerge Osbourne and new Defense Minister Liam Fox, with its strong ties to US neoconservatives, has won the day.
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