Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage
By Gabor Steingart
AP
US President Barack Obama is back in the US after an Asian trip that produced few results.
When he entered office, US
President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new
tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed
that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.
There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled
to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through
Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen
state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with
Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.
Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in
Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also
seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already
been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to
answer the question he had already been asked several times on his
trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said
"thank you, guys," and disappeared. David Axelrod, senior advisor to
the president, fielded the journalists' questions in the hallway of the
Blue House instead, telling them that the public's expectations had
been "too high."
The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an
extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first
Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and
returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.
Lost Some Stature
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the
world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency
isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly
anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the
world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's
new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and
Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.
In Tokyo, the new center-left government even pulled out of its
participation in a mission which saw the Japanese navy refueling US
warships in the Indian Ocean as part of the Afghanistan campaign. In
Beijing, Obama failed to achieve any important concessions whatsoever.
There will be no binding commitments from China to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. A revaluation of the Chinese currency, which is kept
artificially weak, has been postponed. Sanctions against Iran? Not a
chance. Nuclear disarmament? Not an issue for the Chinese.
The White House did not even stand up for itself when it came to the
question of human rights in China. The president, who had said only a
few days earlier that freedom of expression is a universal right, was
coerced into attending a joint press conference with Chinese President
Hu Jintao, at which questions were forbidden. Former US President
George W. Bush had always managed to avoid such press conferences.
Relatively Unsuccessful
A look back in time reveals the differences. When former President
Bill Clinton went to China in June 1998, Beijing wanted to impress the
Americans. A press conference in the Great Hall of the People,
broadcast on television as a 70-minute live discussion, became a
sensation the world over. Clinton mentioned the 1989 Tiananmen Square
massacre, when the government used tanks against protestors. But then
President Jiang Zemin defended the tough approach taken by the Chinese
Communists. At the end of the exchange, the Chinese president praised
the debate and said: "I believe this is democracy!"
Obama visited a new China, an economic power that is now making its
own demands. America should clean up its government finances, and the
weak dollar is unacceptable, the head of the Chinese banking authority
said, just as Obama's plane was about to land.
Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful
elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For
the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is
only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call
for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a
result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians.
"We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former
ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an
advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion."
Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign
policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring,
with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being
changed. "We're searching for an exit strategy," said a staff member
with the National Security Council on the sidelines of the Asia trip.
'A Lot Like Jimmy Carter'
An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy
toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world
that its nuclear power is peaceful. While in Asia, Obama mentioned
"consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president,
in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time
is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used
against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in
the bombers.
There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House
will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama's advisors fear a
comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more
than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama
to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second
term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness
and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the
aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense
weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former
Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And
then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Recent Comments