The NY Times details the face-off and its historical background:
Argentina’s former military junta had a similar aim in 1982 when Lt. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri provoked a bloody confrontation with Britain. The junta was being criticized for economic mismanagement and human rights abuses and hoped that the recovery of the islands, which were seized by Britain in 1833, would unite Argentines behind it.
That idea backfired when the British sent a fleet to retake the islands and prevailed in a 74-day war that resulted in the deaths of about 900 soldiers and civilians, including 649 Argentines.
The defeat turned many Argentines against the military government, hastening its fall from power. Since then, successive governments have insisted on keeping their sovereignty claims alive, though few expect Argentina’s saber rattling to lead to another military conflict.
Argentina has been producing oil for more than a century but has yet to find anywhere near the billions of barrels of oil that Brazil and its foreign partners have discovered around Rio de Janeiro since 2007.
A consortium of oil companies is scheduled to do seismic studies this year off the coast of southern Argentina and around Buenos Aires. But no rigs have been ordered and no dates for drilling have been set, said Alejandro Albanese, an energy expert at the Institute of Strategic Planning, a Buenos Aires research group.
While oil experts are skeptical that the small British-based company now drilling off the Falklands will find an undersea gusher, the discovery of any sizable reserve would be tough for the Argentines to swallow.
The Times Online UK reports that Britain is seeking diplomatic backing from the US, in vain to date; SecState Hillary clinton visits Uruguay next week and will meet with the Argentines. State is neutral thus far (unlike Ronald Reagan in 1982, when Lady Thatcher sent the fleet), a stance that the Heritage Foundation's Foundry Blog excoriates:
Even by the relentlessly poor standards of the Obama administration, whose doctrine unfailingly appears to be “kiss your enemies and kick your allies”, this is a new low. The White House’s neutrality in a major dispute between America’s closest friend and the likes of Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez, Argentina’s biggest backer, represents the appalling appeasement of an alliance of anti-Western Latin American regimes, stretching from Caracas to Havana – combined with a callous indifference towards the Anglo-American alliance.
Over the course of the last year, we’ve seen a staggering array of foreign policy follies by this administration, from the throwing under the bus of the Poles and the Czechs over missile defence to siding with Marxists in Honduras. But this latest pronouncement surely takes the biscuit as the most brazen betrayal so far of a US ally.
As the Obama government is amply aware, the tensions between London and Buenos Aires are escalating dramatically, with British military contingency planning already under way. In effect, Washington declared today that it would remain neutral in the event of another war in the South Atlantic, a stunning declaration to make.
Thousands of British soldiers are laying their lives on the line alongside their American allies on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Yet the president of the United States is either unwilling or too timid to offer a single word of support for the British people, who face a mounting confrontation with a corrupt, populist Argentine government that is threatening a blockade of British territory.
To put it bluntly, the Obama administration is killing the Special Relationship, and the prospects of a recovery look extremely bleak as long as Barack Obama remains in the White House.
A Daily Telegraph op-ed states that siding with Argentina will not win favor in Latin America, where leftist governments detest the Argentines:
In the grand scheme of things it makes little sense for America to give moral support to the Kirchner government in Argentina. Kirchner is no friend of the US and Kirchner’s government is in deep domestic trouble for its gross mismanagement of the economy and its attempts to suppress the press criticism of the regime at home. One has to wonder what benefit America gets out of hurting Britain on this issue. Perhaps Obama thinks that the more Leftist Latin American regimes will somehow approve of the US. If that is the case, he is truly mistaken, as most Latin American nations dislike the Argentineans, and have little sympathy for the mess Argentina got into over the Falklands.
An ex-Thatcher aide recalls US help in 1982 and explains the collateral risk Team Obama runs: British withdrawal from Afghanistan is a Falklands war ignites. Comparing 1982 & 2010 he writes:
The world is, of course, different now. But the main difference, in this case, is not in the calculus of American interest in relations with Britain but with Argentina. Britain is still America’s main ally when and where it counts, as in Afghanistan today.
Yes: Britain’s defences are depleted and its stance on security cooperation sometimes shaky. The press is full of stories that America’s public distance in the Falklands business is pay-back for British failure to protect CIA intelligence in the Binyam Mohamed case. If so, that is childish. It is the British courts, not the government, which are the problem – something Americans should easily understand.
In any case, in the real world we must work with our allies, rather than re-invent them. Furthermore, with a Conservative Government still likely in Britain this summer, it pays to be patient in the hope of better collaboration.
The real change, though, relates to Argentina. No doubt White House liberals are pleased that the Latin American military governments have gone. But they should be – but apparently aren’t - extremely worried about the hemispheric shift into a demagogic, statist and viscerally anti-American camp. Significantly, Argentina has received full throated support from President Chavez of Venezuela, before whose clones the US State Department quails. The weaker that American policy is in dealing with the Chavez bloc, the greater the threat of war throughout the region – including the Falklands.
Then Britain had to send an invasion force; now the island is fortified and well defended. But still, the trade Team Obama risks making is sheer stupidity, dissing an ally while propitiating an citadel of anti-Us nuisance:
The Falklands cost over 250 British lives to secure, and the Falklanders and their Islands will not be given up. Full stop. British blood has now consecrated British identity, and Washington should grasp that. So, in recognition of reality, US policy should be discouraging Argentina, pressuring it to negotiate on questions of oil exploration and other secondary issues, and warning it, privately and if necessary publicly, of the terrible consequence of going to the brink.
With a different US Administration, one might have expected such a policy by reason of past history and shared values. But it makes equal sense as serving America’s national interest, for two reasons. The first is general: namely that Britain is a significant ally and Argentina is merely an insignificant nuisance. Mrs Kirchner explained it quite succinctly to the foreign press: “We are not in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor do we want to be. We are only in missions in Cyprus and Haiti – that is to say, we have no militaristic vocation (tenemos una vocacion no belicista).” Muy bien. But the Spanish equivalent of “Hell, no, we won’t go!” is not so good a declaration when danger threatens.
As it now does from international Jihadism - which leads to the second, specific, reason why America’s equidistance over the Falklands dispute is ill-advised. Should it suddenly become necessary to reinforce the Falklands against an imminent or actual Argentine attack, Britain’s ten thousand troops would immediately be recalled from Afghanistan. It would be done by any British government, and the politicians would be acting under overwhelming public pressure. If that should ever happen, Argentina will not be crying - but Washington may.
Foundry Blog predicts that Members of Congress will rally to the UK side, in an effort to limit damage to the "special relationship as it approaches its 70th year. Let us hope so.
Bottom Line. This is indeed the biggest slap in Britain's face in 44's 13 months. Brits who rallied to The One at the expense of support for John McCain, an arch-Atlanticist, are learning anew the wisdom of the old Chinese admonition: "Be careful what you wish for..."
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, UN, Economy
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