Much-to-do has been made of Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision not to attend the ‘nuclear security summit’ being held by President Obama.  (Israel sent an intelligence minister instead)  What has been remarkably under reported however is that Bibi is not the only  traditionally key U.S. ally not to be attending or feeling a coldness towards the United States as a result of President Obama’s repeated humiliation of America’s traditional allies.  Among others, Britain, Australia and Saudi Arabia also stayed home. (England is sending Foreign Secretary David Miliband).

Specifically, there is speculation that the refusal to attend by Great Britain’s Prime Minister (although they used the official excuse of needing time to campaign) is more evidence of a widening rift created by President Obama between the two traditional allies’ once special relationship.

I suspect there is far more to it than mere concern over missing a day or two on the election trail. This is almost certainly payback for Obama’s shoddy treatment of the Prime Minister during his previous two trips to the US. It is important not to underestimate the degree to which Brown was utterly humiliated when he went to the White House in March last year and was denied the courtesy of an official press conference or an official dinner with the president. To add insult to injury, Brown was made a laughingstock internationally when it was revealed the president had given him a derisive gift of 25 DVDs. In September, more embarrassment was to follow when Brown traveled to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, with President Obama declining to meet with his British counterpart after no less than five official requests.

There is certainly no love lost between the two leaders, and Brown’s decision to stay away from Washington has all the hallmarks of a significant transatlantic spat…

Although practically unreported, President Obama seems to be chasing our traditional allies away and realigning America with the totalitarian dictators of the world at a blistering pace. This destruction of traditional alliances however doesn’t only apply to Israel and Great Britain.

As remarkable as it is, the fact that neither British Prime Minister Gordon Brown nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are attending President Obama’s nuclear security summit in Washington Monday and Tuesday is not altogether surprising.

Relations with both countries — Israel in particular — have grown strained under Obama. Combined with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent defiance of the administration, questions are growing about the president’s ability to maintain important relationships.

“It is a curious state of affairs when relations with our major democratic allies are all wobbly at once,” said Michael Green, a former foreign policy adviser to President George W. Bush, who also listed Japan and South Korea as traditional allies whose relationships with the U.S. have frayed under Obama.

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The president’s critics, many of them from the Bush administration, say the summit absences — heads of state from Australia and Saudia Arabia also are not attending — are the most glaring examples of a floundering foreign policy that treats rivals and enemies better than friends.

“He seems to want to engage rivals, even enemies, more than spend time with friends and allies,” said David Kramer, a top State Department official in the Bush administration.

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Elliot Abrams, another former top Bush administration foreign policy adviser, said the current White House was guilty of “diplomatic malpractice.”

“In his treatment of Karzai and Netanyahu, the president has shown an odd understanding of what it means to be a U.S. ally. Surely it should mean that inevitable disagreements are handled privately whenever possible. Surely it should mean avoiding steps that seek to weaken or humiliate a foreign leader,” Abrams said.

Though relations with Karzai grew strained at the end of the Bush administration, the Obama administration’s relationship with the Afghan president — the leader of the country that is currently home to the biggest concentration of U.S. military forces on the planet — has been a soap opera.

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During Obama’s trip to Kabul just two weeks ago, he did not praise Karzai and his top officials made clear he was there to put pressure on the Afghan president to do a better job of governance and rooting out corruption.

Karzai responded by denouncing Western interference in last summer’s elections and by talking of joining the Taliban himself.

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“Surely we should be treating [Karzai and Netanyahu] better than we treat enemies like [Syrian President] Bashar al-Asad or [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez, or the Russian and Chinese leaders, who if not enemies are certainly not friends,” Abrams said.

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Even major European leaders got meetings with Obama this week only at the last minute. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s one-on-one meeting with Obama was scheduled for Tuesday late on Sunday, only after meetings with the leaders of India, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Jordan, Malaysia, Ukraine, Armenia and Turkey.