Beyond all this vying for attention lies an awkward reality that might roughly be summed up as the end of the Bush excuse. As long as George Bush was in office, Europeans could throw up their hands over the treatment of the Guantánamo Bay prison inmates but feel little pressure to take any of them in; or, indeed, to do more to help in Afghanistan. Under Mr Obama nobody will dare to seem so curmudgeonly.

The closure of Guantánamo, which Mr Obama has promised within a year, has served up an early dilemma. Having called for it for years, Europeans are now divided over their response. In Brussels this week foreign ministers failed to agree. “Nobody is very warm” about taking in the prisoners, said Karel Schwartzenberg, the Czech foreign minister. Only a handful of countries have said that they would consider accepting any of the 60-odd third-country prisoners cleared for release who risk torture if they are sent back to their home countries.

France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, says he will consider requests favourably, but on a “case-by-case basis”. An especially tricky one will be Nabil Hadjarab, an Algerian captured in Afghanistan in 2001, whose family all have French passports, although he does not. His lawyer has requested that France take him. The foreign ministry seems open-minded, but the interior ministry is firmly against. Similarly in Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, the normally pro-American interior minister, is reluctant to admit detainees. But Mr Steinmeier, normally seen as less Atlanticist, says Europe’s willingness to take some is a “question of credibility”.

... contd.