At the moment there is great hand ringing about damages to the special relationship with America. However, when you look at this relationship it would seem to be special only on one side, ours – the British. To the Americans I suspect it is an important diplomatic one but when push comes to shove the one thing that matters to the American’s is their own interests and not the ‘special relationship’. In other words if it is not in American interests then they won’t do something.

I am sure that there are many areas that the American/British relationship is very close but hardly ‘special’. An example of this would be the level of evidence needed to extradite suspects from one country to the other. The level is much higher on the American side when compared to the British. If the relationship was ‘special’ then surely both levels would be the same – we do, after all share the same legal processes based on Common Law.

As for permanently damaging the relationship I would just say Vietnam. In the 1960s Britain refused to be part of that nasty little war even though great pressure was put on them. We had, after all, still had some interest in the South Asia arena yet Britain never got involved. Some how the relationship survived – mainly because Britain was America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier against the USSR so were excused Vietnam. Again, the special relationship meant what was in America’s interest.

So today Britain sits in a diminished position in the world. Apparently we have lost some of the power of our voice. What we say no longer counts or perhaps what Britain has said counts more than is thought by the people who think we should still be a world policeman. Just perhaps when the dust has settled it will be seen that it was the voice of common sense because as yet no one seems to be able to explain why a few tonnes of explosives will make any difference in a civil war of many kilo tonnes – in fact as I write this the headlines of the New York Times have flashed saying that support is slipping at home for such military actions. (When you you read the articles it is not easy to miss that the American people are just a sceptical as the British yet their President wants to fire a few missiles to save face and because “something must be done”. They do raise the interesting point about what will the American’s do were the Assad government to use chemical weapons again)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/world/middleeast/support-slipping-us-defends-plan-for-syria-attack.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130831

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/world/middleeast/experts-fear-us-plan-to-strike-syria-overlooks-risks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130831

This action appears to be more about politicians feeling they need to do something to save face. No one thinks it will change anything in the civil war, other than kill a few unsuspecting people who had not moved away from the likely targets (ordinary people) and the symbolism will probably make matters worse. Given this view the all of a sudden the vote in the British parliament has got a voice in the world and just perhaps that voice is the one of sanity against bombing people for no real purpose. There is already too much of that going on at the moment anyway.

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