British Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth is publicly slamming Barack Obama for spending months making a decision regarding troop levels for Afghanistan even after his hand-picked generals provided their advice for surge strategies. Ainsworth says the Obama Administration is to blame for falling British public support for the war against the Taliban.

Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban.

A “period of hiatus” in Washington – and a lack of clear direction – had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.

Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering” on Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month, with several former British defence chiefs echoing the concerns.

But Mr Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the US president’s leadership over the conflict which has so far cost 235 British lives.

Ainsworth is right to criticize. Obama spent the entire campaign lecturing the country on how we need to provide additional resources for the war in Afghanistan and promised to win the fight. He hand-picked General Stanley McChrystal to lead troops in the country, saying he was hands-down the best man for the job. McChrystal then went ahead and presented the administration with a list of resources required to win. Then what happened?

Obama took months to make a decision. We’re now three months into the twelve months McChrystal said we had to turn the war around and we still don’t have a solid position from the White House. American troops are dying while Obama practices his golf swing rather than deciding whether to send backup.

The Defence Secretary’s blunt remarks about the US threaten to strain further a transatlantic relationship already under pressure over the British release of the Lockerbie bomber and Mr Obama’s decision to snub Mr Brown at the United Nations in September.

Wait. Wasn’t the Obama Administration supposed to repair our supposedly damaged standing in the world and strained relationships with allies? What happened? I could’ve sworn this was supposed to be the era of hope and change, the period of Smart Power.