BRING BACK OUR AFRICAN LEADERS...FROM WASHINGTON!: THE USA-AFRICA LEADERS' SUMMIT.
"Ships that pass in the night
And speak each other in passing
Only a signal shown
And a distant voice in the darkness
So, on the ocean of life
We pass and speak one another
Only a look and a voice
The darkness again and silence."
Longfellow, Tales of Wayside Inn.
INTRODUCTION
At the moment of Barack Hussein Obama's great promise, whilst standing on the cusp of presidential power after vanquishing Hillary Rodham Clinton to clinch the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, something happened, which, in hindsight, is of great relevance to the USA-Africa Leaders' Summit, which Obama has just hosted in Washington, the USA's capital, allegedly successfully.
On that occasion Newsweek magazine led with a cover story on candidate Barack Obama's future foreign policy as would-be president. The two-part story was entitled "Obama Abroad", by Fareed Zakaria, now host of CNN's Global Public Square (GPS) discussion show, and "Advice for Obama", by Timothy Garton Ash. Conspicuous by its glaring ommission in the veteran opinion formers' analyses of candidate Obama's foreign policy agenda was Africa, the continent from which Obama's father hailed.
Africa was clearly a huge diplomatic lacuna in the foreign policy thinking and planning of Obama and the American foreign policy honks around him who claimed to understand Obama's thinking on foreign policy at the time.