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March 11th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda “We welcome such a clear affirmation of the importance that the US places on the relationship,” said a senior British official.
The sports-mad president is taking the Prime Minister on Air Force One to watch a basketball game in the country’s avidly-followed college championships.
It is no coincidence, however, that the destination is the swing election state of Ohio – providing Mr Obama with US-taxpayer funded campaign publicity, and helping rebut criticisms that he has downplayed America’s key alliances while trying but failing to develop better ties with the likes of Russia and Iran.
Mrs Obama and Mrs Cameron will meanwhile host a mini-Olympics competition in celebration of the 2012 London Games and the First Lady’s anti-childhood obesity initiative with schoolchildren and Olympians in Washington.
The next day they will will speak in the White House state dining room with young women and girls from America and British colleges, including pupils from the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson secondary school that Mrs Obama visited in north London.
It is Mrs Cameron’s debut in Washington as the Prime Minister’s wife as she missed his previous trip due to her pregnancy. The two women struck up an accord when the Obamas visited London last year on a state visit hosted by the Queen.
It is a far cry from the earlier days of his administration. In his first meeting with a British prime minister at the White House, he presented Mr Brown with a box set of CDs which seemed little more than an after-thought. His visitor, by contrast, brought gifts worth $16,000, including a black and gold pen and a pen holder made from the wood of a British anti-slaving vessel.
Swept into office on the back of his opposition to the Iraq war led by Mr Bush and Tony Blair, Mr Obama apparently viewed Britain as a partner on a par with other major European allies. Indeed, his spokesman referred to a “special partnership” rather than the long-standing formulation of “special relationship” between the two.
That Mr Obama had been told by his Kenyan relatives about his grandfather’s alleged torture by British forces during the colonial era was widely believed to have fuelled his scepticism about Britain. This week, by contrast, there will be camaraderie for the cameras and the glamour of the state dinner.
But their talks will have a much more challenging agenda. On Iran, the two men will discuss the new sanctions that they hope will head off the threat of Israeli air strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites this year; on Syria, they will denounce the murderous regime crackdown, but seem powerless to end it; and on Afghanistan, they will focus on their withdrawal plans for US and British forces.
Mr Cameron is also expected to explain the British position on the Falkland Islands amid Argentine sabre-rattling ahead of next month’s 30th anniversary of the war. America’s long-standing policy has been to refer to the Falklands as a “bilateral issue” for dialogue between Britain and Argentina – a position rejected by London and islanders themselves who have made clear their wish to remain British.
But Mr Obama, say insiders, places a premium on personal relationships. And he has found it much easier to strike up an accord with Mr Cameron, another young modernising party leader, than he did with Mr Brown.
That relationship between Downing St and the White House reached its nadir during Mr Brown’s ill-fated final trip to the United Nations in Sept 2009 which ended with him chasing the president through the UN kitchens for a brief “walk and talk”.
US and British officials say that the US president has established close personal ties with Mr Cameron as well as appreciating Britain’s role as a political and military ally. But in a US election year, when the president’s every act is directed by campaign strategists, his critics are more sceptical about the reason for his embrace of a once-spurned friend.
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