Europe
Post September 11, President Bush worked closely with his NATO allies in Europe, to fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan. However, after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, relations were strained with France and Germany, who strongly opposed the invasion. But President Bush had an excellent relationship with Tony Blair, of Britain, which took part in the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush began his second term with an emphasis on improving strained relations with European nations. Bush lauded the pro-democracy struggles in Georgia and Ukraine. However, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, both undemocratically elected and fiercely autocratic, received official state visits to the White House, along with increased economic and military assistance. The President had encouraged both leaders to hold free and fair elections early on in his second term, but in fact neither leader carried out significant reforms.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Policy Of The George W. Bush Administration
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“In Europe art has to a large degree taken the place of religion. In America it seems rather to be science.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“...I think the Americans are the only people who have good beds. I consider the American bedroom unparalleled for freshness, comfort, and cleanliness. It is worth going all over Europe in order to come home to one’s own bed.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“The people of Western Europe are facing this summer a series of tragic dilemmas. Of the hopes that dazzled the last twenty years that some political movement might tend to the betterment of the human lot, little remains above ground but the tattered slogans of the past.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)