LONDON – Fresh from a triumphant stop in Ireland, President Obama will begin a visit to London today looking to put the “special” back in the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

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President Obama is hugged by a well-wisher after speaking Monday at College Green in Dublin, Ireland. The Associated Press

Queen Elizabeth will fete first lady Michelle Obama and the president with all the pomp of an official state visit, and they will stay overnight in Buckingham Palace. Obama also will huddle with Prime Minister David Cameron, unveil a new security partnership and on Wednesday become the first U.S. president to address a joint session of Parliament in historic Westminster Hall.

Obama is out to make up for a rocky start to this relationship on both sides of the pond. Some actions upset Americans, such as British firm BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, as well as the British release of a Libyan terrorist who had killed Americans in a 1988 plane bombing over Scotland. Some of Obama’s faux pas rankled the British, such as his removal of a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

The meetings between Obama and Cameron will focus on such issues as NATO’s bombing in Libya and the pro-democracy uprisings of the “Arab Spring.”

One subject that might come up behind closed doors is the strain that two months of Libyan bombing has exposed in the British military, where deep budget cuts have cost it the services of an aircraft carrier and trained pilots.

Also, Obama and Cameron are expected to announce the formation of a U.S.-U.K. National Security Strategy Board. Co-chaired by White House national security adviser Tom Donilon and British national security adviser Sir Peter Ricketts, it would coordinate the two governments’ assessments of threats from terrorists and rogue nations.

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