"Special students" managing our Special Relationship with the U.K.

Remember how Obama was supposed to enhance our prestige in the world? It seems more like the Obama approach to foreign policy is to undercut our allies and inflate our enemies. How does that help anything?

Anyways, true to historical precedent and in a shameless bid to distract voters from an imploding economy and sky-rocketing inflation via jingoistic nationalism, Argentina's cosmetically modified left-wing Madame-in-Chief, Christina Kirchner, has decided to resurrect the faux sovereignty concerns over the Falkland Islands.This is an example of international relations at its worst.

Nile Gardiner, over at the Daily Telegraph, a leading British daily, is rightfully indignant about how the Obama administration is claiming neutrality and dismissing legitimate British concerns.  Here are some on the record comments from the State Department concerning the matter at hand:

“We are aware not only of the current situation but also of the history, but our position remains one of neutrality. The US recognises de facto UK administration of the islands but takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party.”

“There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.”

Beyond being brazen and ignorant, statements like these are deliberately destructive to one of the most valued and influential trans-Atlantic relationships. Credibility is the most important factor in international relationships and diplomacy. Without it, you're kaput. The deliberate and intentional erosion of credibility, especially when nothing seems to be gained, strikes the werewolf as one of the great foreign policy position blunders a nation can make. Beyond being embarrassing (which this is), attitudes like this are scary and harmful because they undermine generations of carefully constructed understandings and protocols, along with the most highly valued, but tough to measure currency of credibility. This shameful behavior is beyond Carter-esque in ignorance, it's Chamberlin-esque (as in Neville). It is a bad sign of things to come.