In July 2008, Britain was a solid member of the European Union, where refugee and debt crises had yet to materialize. The global financial crisis was raging, but its consequences weren’t fully appreciated. The Arab world wasn’t yet reeling from pro-democracy uprisings, anti-democracy crackdowns, and civil war. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of ISIS, was shrinking. Donald Trump had recently fired Gene Simmons on The Celebrity Apprentice. And Barack Obama, a youthful, sunny, self-assured presidential candidate, stood before 200,000 people in Berlin and introduced himself not only as an American, but as a “fellow citizen of the world.”Obama spoke of …read more
Source: The Atlantic
