In Washington this week a president and a prime minister declared victory even as they admitted defeat. The US and Britain are getting out of Afghanistan. The rush for the exit is becoming a race. “We’ve been there for 10 years and people get weary,” Barack Obama said. “People want an end game,” Britain’s David Cameron chipped in. “What happens next in that benighted country is, well, a problem for the Afghans.”
Mr Cameron used to shun talk of the special relationship between London and Washington. His predecessors had been supine. This prime minister was going to be no one’s poodle. Proximity to real power, though, is intoxicating. Misplaced pride melts away. Never mind talk of American decline; for the leader of a middle-ranking ally clinging precariously to past glories nothing beats swanking with the most powerful politician on earth.
The warmth of the presidential welcome was striking. If only Mr Cameron’s aides could keep quiet. “I’m embarrassed for you,” an American friend said after British officials had gushed with adolescent glee about the prime minister’s brief flight with Mr Obama on Air Force One. Apparently it was a first for a foreign leader. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, Downing Street boasted, had got nothing more than a trip to a local hot dog stand. School playgrounds come to mind.