What's He Gonna Say?

From Bloomberg about Obama's big Berlin Speech:


``We may be in for a rude awakening,'' said Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a member of parliament's foreign affairs committee from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. ``Obama views cooperation as anything but a one-way street.''

Obama ``wants to make the old alliances more meaningful by asking more of the allies,'' said Jan Techau, a transatlantic affairs expert at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations. ``He will try and softly prepare the Europeans for what's going to happen as soon as he enters the White House, if he does so.''

Obama may demand ``greater burden-sharing'' from European allies in Afghanistan, said Eckart von Klaeden, foreign-affairs spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democrats.

``Obama has made it very clear that he will channel the resources from Iraq into Afghanistan, because Afghanistan in his eyes is the right war to fight,'' said Techau. ``And for that right war to be successful, he will ask for more.''

``I'm somewhat wondering about how realistic our expectations are,'' Stelzenmueller said, adding that she expects ``nothing concrete'' in terms of policy proposals. ``Ultimately, Obama has no choice but to pursue U.S. national interests, even though he displays multilateral instincts.''