Dan Drezner encounters Obama Derangement Syndrome in the wild today and is revolted. You see, the Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper is outraged that at today’s G-20 meeting President Obama hugged Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, someone who, as Dan points out, is an American friend and ally. But Halper is outraged anyway, because “Turkey has made its hostility to Israel abundantly clear.” Dan has a question:
To be blunt about it, is Israel now America’s ally uber alles? If other countries disagree with Israel, does that mean, in Goldfarb’s eyes, that they no longer qualify as either friend or ally? Are there any other of America’s friends that fall into this super-special status? I really want to know.
I think the answers are Yes, Yes, and probably Yes. I’m thinking of France for question 3, but I suppose there are others too. That’s life in the fever swamps.