The Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2009

Analysis: What has Barack Obama's first foreign tour really achieved?

After a frenetic eight days, 10,000 plus miles, three summits and meetings with some 15 world leaders, the White House press corps gathered to hear President Barack Obama's closest political adviser trumpet an "enormously productive" trip.

Standing in an Istanbul hotel beneath huge crystal chandeliers and a ceiling decorated with Ottoman motifs, David Axelrod argued that Mr Obama's first appearance on the world stage had been an "great success" that had yielded "tangible progress".

Certainly, Mr Obama was feted across Europe. In Prague's Hradcany Square, more than 20,000 Czechs turned out on a Sunday morning to hear him promise to seek a "world without nuclear weapons" and demand that "the voices for peace and progress must be raised together".

 In Strasbourg, there were squeals of delight as Mr Obama led a crowd of surprised students in a chant of: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." Arthur Renaud, 19, said afterwards: "This was a wonderful moment for the human race."

As Mr Obama himself seemed to recognise when he referred to President John F. Kennedy's remark about his wife Jackie, not since Camelot came to Europe in 1961 had an American commander-in-chief and his wife received such adulation.

"To paraphrase one of my predecessors, I am also proud to be the man who brought Michelle Obama to Prague," Mr Obama said.

But Mr Obama returns to the United States with few demonstrable results to show for his tireless efforts to woo Europe and rebuild relations after President George W. Bush by apologising for American "arrogance" and declaring at every turn that he wants "to listen, to learn and to lead".

In a deft attempt to manage expectations, he scaled down what he was asking for even before he stepped on Air Force One bound for London. This meant that even though the G20 summit yielded a fraction of the economic stimulus measures he could claim a historic success.

The same pattern followed at the Nato summit when allies came up with a paltry 5,000 troops for Afghanistan, including 3,000 that will be just a temporary election force and 600 that the Germans had already promised Mr Bush, compared to the 21,000 Mr Obama had just committed.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France lavished praise on Mr Obama at every turn and said that the American president's fresh approach was "starting to bear fruit".

Not a single additional French soldier will be sent to Afghanistan, however, and in Prague, Mr Sarkozy publicly berated Mr Obama for having the temerity to call for Turkey to be admitted to the European Union.

Perhaps the most tangible achievement of the trip was an agreement in principle with Russia to reduce nuclear stockpiles and negotiate a new arms control treaty.

But the Russian aspirations were similar to those expressed to Mr Bush at the Sochi summit a year ago and Moscow, with its ageing nuclear arsenal, has more to gain from strategic reductions than Washington.

Even one of Mr Obama senior adviser conceded that the "deal" with Russian could amount to nothing. "To establish an ambitious agenda does not mean we're going to fulfil it, and we have no illusions about that," he said.

Similarly, minutes before Mr Obama outlined his utopian vision of a nuclear free world, Gary Samore, a White House arms control adviser, admitted that this was "not a near-term possibility" and the speech was an attempt to exert pressure on Iran and North Korea by occupying "the moral high ground".

Hours before Mr Obama's Prague speech, Pyongyang launched a rocket over Japan – a clear test of the new president. Two days later, the United Nations Security Council had yet to agree on a response.

The danger for Mr Obama is that his message often seems to circle back to himself and while there is little doubt that he has won European hearts much of the affection is for his persona rather than his policies.

In France and Turkey, he sought to turn to his advantage the Muslim middle name that some American political operatives had believed would prevent him ever winning the White House.

The US "like every other nation has made mistakes and has its flaws", he said in Istanbul, but if it wasn't a tolerant country "then somebody named Barack Hussein Obama wouldn't have been elected President of the United States of America".

While presenting himself as the embodiment of a modern, progressive US, Mr Obama seems less than comfortable talking about American power.

In his G20 press conference in London, he said that he believed in "American exceptionalism" but then reduced the cherished notion that Americans are a special people because of their institutions and origins to mere patriotism. "Just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Unfortunately, he chose to cite two countries whose empires crumbled to dust.

At the same event, Mr Obama quipped that these days things were not so simple as when Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill could cut a deal over a brandy "But that's not the world we live in and it shouldn't be the world that we live in," he said, perhaps suggesting a preference for a multipolar world in which the US was no longer the sole superpower.

Der Spiegel quoted Mr Obama as agreeing with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy that America was to blame for the global financial crisis. "It is true, as my Italian friend has said, that the crisis began in the US. I take responsibility, even if I wasn't even president at the time," he reportedly said.

Although he travelled with all the awe-inspiring trappings of the most powerful man in the world – Air Force One, the armour-plated limousines, scores of Secret Service agents and more than 200 reporters in his wake – Mr Obama repeated stressed humility.

Only towards the end did he begin to show a touch of frustration that some – such as Mr Sarkozy – had accepted his apologies and explanations and then branded his softly, softly advice as interference in European affairs.

"I notice the Europeans have had a lot of opinions about U.S. policy for a long time, right?" Mr Obama shot back when a Turkish student asked him about Mr Sarkozy's remarks.

There was also some impatience from Mr Axelrod that the White House press corps seemed a little sceptical about his analysis that the trip was a "great success" in which "we accomplished everything we had hoped" and more.

"Why didn't the waters part, the sun shine, and all ills of the world disappear because President Obama came to Europe this week?" he asked, urging patience. "That wasn't our expectation. That will take at least a few weeks."

The Daily Telegraph, 4 April 2009

Barack Obama: the whole world in his hands

Barack Obama made certain to squeeze every advantage from his visit to the G20 summit, says Toby Harnden

He looked like a man with all the cares of the world resting on his shoulders. Walking slowly down the steps of his VH3-D Marine One helicopter and across the soft, lush lawn inclining up towards Winfield House, President Barack Obama was deep in contemplation.

At a discreet distance, a dozen or so Secret Service agents stood sentinel, some facing outwards, scanning the edge of the 12-acre grounds of the neo-Georgian mansion, the official residence of the American ambassador to London that nestles in Regent's Park.

Mr Obama was alone in the floodlights, savouring a rare few moments of relative solitude after a first appearance on the global stage on Thursday when he had engineered a deal between President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and President Hu Jintao of China that had broken the deadlock at the G20 summit.

Although he has been suffering from a worsening cold that has left him red-eyed and at times rasping, Mr Obama never flagged publicly during his five days in London, Strasbourg and Baden-Baden. If anything, he has thrived on the punishing schedule, akin to the pace of his epic 21-month presidential campaign.

By Friday, Mr Obama's cold had moved down to his chest, leaving him reaching for a bottle of water as he answered questions inside a sports arena in Strasbourg. But he drew strength from the excited energy of a crowd packed with German and French students.

"He's got the whole world in his hands, he's got the moon and the stars in his hands," a warm-up singer from South Carolina had declared a few minutes earlier. And so it seemed, as Mr Obama, putting aside the petty sniping, slightly sagging poll ratings and horse-trading on Capitol Hill back home, snapped right back into campaign mode.

Back in Washington, the press – burned by accusations of its credulity over the Iraq war and of anointing Mr Obama during the campaign – is sceptical, at times a touch hostile. He was criticised for bowing elaborately when he met King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a contrast with the polite nod of the head and handshake he gave the Queen; and conservative commentators accused him of treachery for suggesting that America had previously shown too much "arrogance" in its dealings with Europe.

But in Europe, and indeed farther afield, it seems there is no doubting Mr Obama. "Thank you for choosing me, I'm very well," giggled a Times of India reporter honoured by being called on at his G20 press conference in London, before proceeding to agree with Mr Obama that her own prime minister was "wonderful".

White House officials were delighted with the London leg of his visit. "The Obamas represent the modern face of the United States," said one. "They are informal but respect the traditions of Britain. The moment Michelle and the Queen put their arms around each other symbolised what we accomplished overall."

Deferred to by Gordon Brown, the chair of the G20 summit, at every turn, Mr Obama's popularity and star power eclipsed that of all his counterparts. But for all the soaring rhetoric, the rapt crowds and giddy adulation of his first overseas tour as President, there was a hint of regret.

"You know, oftentimes during these foreign trips, you see everything from behind a window," he said as he took to the stage. A few minutes later, he reflected mournfully: "You also lose privacy and autonomy, or anonymity.

"You know, it's very frustrating now. It used to be when I came to Europe that I could just wander down to a café and sit and have some wine and watch people go by, and, you know, go into a little shop, and watch the sun go down. And now I'm in hotel rooms all the time. And I have security around me all the time."

Despite what Mr Sarkozy described as Mr Obama's "clear determination to build a new world", he is no longer quite of this world. Instead, he moves inside his own private universe. Every time Marine One flies, a decoy VH-3 and a Chinook accompanies him in the skies. He arrived at Downing Street in his armour-plated "Beast" limousine – flown into London on a transport plane – at the centre of a 17-vehicle motorcade.

He is still served by many of the same campaign aides. The fresh-faced twentysomethings who herded the press corps around Iowa and New Hampshire are now White House staff. They are cooler and more distant, though in London they could not hide their delight at glimpsing the tourist attractions. "Omigod, there's Big Ben!" exclaimed one, en route to Downing Street.

"The President was more nervous about going to Buckingham Palace than addressing the G20," said a White House aide. "It's not every day that you meet a Queen."

Last week, however, it became clear that Mr Obama, a humble freshman senator until a few months ago, is seen by many – and perhaps by himself – as president of the world. Far from budget negotiations, recalcitrant car manufacturers and populist outrage at corporate bonuses, being able to paint on a broader canvas seemed to give him a fillip.

"It is a revolutionary world that we live in, and history shows us that we can do improbable, sometimes impossible, things," he told the enthralled crowd in Strasbourg on Friday, promising "transformational change" across the globe.

Stephanie Houley, 30, an English teacher in France, said she had been transfixed by Mr Obama. "He is black and white and all kinds of things, and that's the way he sees the world. That's why we identify with him in Europe."

Outside the Rhenus Arena in Strasbourg, Mr Obama, surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents, grasped hands and repeated over and over: "Thank you so much, thank you so much." He was heading to Marine One for a short flight to Baden-Baden, where he would meet Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

Although he was a few minutes late, he wanted to mingle with his admirers just as he once could during the Presidential campaign. Two female students, intent on embracing him, were blocked as the crowd was held back. Mr Obama looked at them, as if he wished to bask in the moment for longer – but was steered away towards his limousine.

The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2009

Barack Obama: 'Every decision we're making counts'

On the eve of arriving in London for the G20 summit, President Obama spoke about the pressures he is facing. Toby Harnden reports from Washington

Sitting in the Oval Office beside the HMS Resolute desk, a gift from Queen Victoria in 1880 fashioned from the timbers of the Arctic vessel, President Barack Obama appeared unerringly relaxed about the problems he faces.

He laughed when reminded in an interview broadcast yesterday that President Thomas Jefferson once described his job as a "splendid misery" and had said ruefully that the presidency had brought him "nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends".

Clearly, Mr Obama, who has never been accused of lacking confidence, relishes the challenges. "I don't think I've lost any friends," he said. "But I'm sure I've strained some friendships. Look, this is an invigorating job. In some ways, I feel incredibly fortunate to be in this job at a time where the presidency really matters. You know, this is not a caretaker presidency right now. Every decision we're making counts."

Most of those decisions have been domestic ones. In this respect, Mr Obama is reflecting the American mood. Although the interview, conducted by the venerable Bob Schieffer of CBS, was broadcast just over a day before Mr Obama departs for a five-stop, eight-day tour of Europe, he did not receive a single question about the business he will be conducting abroad.

Iraq, which consumed Mr Bush's presidency, is now "the least of my problems", Mr Obama said recently. Day after day, he has been focused on the economic crisis that has gripped the United States. Although he has paid lip service to the global scope of the recession, he has been light on the details.

While he has promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, the move was largely symbolic – he has yet to decide where the prisoners will go. And while a new Afghanistan strategy has been announced, Mr Obama chose to do so on a Friday morning amid a welter of other news.

His predecessor George W Bush used the same Resolute desk, at one time keeping in a drawer a hit-list of al-Qaeda figures whose faces he would cross out when they were killed or captured. Mr Obama is already grappling with many of the same issues of war and peace in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But although he vowed during his successful election campaign to "change the world", citing his multi-racial background and childhood years in Indonesia as qualifications for what he described in Germany last year as his "global citizenship", thus far his presidency has been decidedly inward-looking.

The desk may be the same, but the Jacob Epstein bust of Winston Churchill has been replaced by a bronze of Martin Luther King by the celebrated black sculptor Charles Alston.

Mr Obama was asked by Schieffer about Afghanistan and the President spoke extensively about his plan but framed the conflict in narrow terms, avoiding any talk of nation-building or establishing democracy there.

"I think it's America's war. And it's the same war that we initiated after 9/11 as a consequence of those attacks on 3,000 Americans who were just going about their daily round. And the focus over the last seven years I think has been lost," he said.

Minutes later, he was protesting that it was not just America's war. "One of the concerns that we've had building up over the last several years is a notion I think among the average Pakistani that this is somehow America's war and that they are not invested. And that attitude I think has led to a steady creep of extremism."

His first answer had been in response to the commonly-expressed notion that it was now "Obama's war", but his slip was revealing.

For all his rhetoric about presenting a new face to the world, Mr Obama's outlook is fundamentally American – and much of the transformation in foreign policy that he talked about on the campaign trail was rooted principally in the conceit that Mr Obama's multicultural background was in itself the embodiment of change.

Mr Obama's language about Afghanistan borders on the warm and fuzzy and is light on specifics – the benchmarks on which progress in Afghanistan will be measured have yet to be formulated.

He told Schieffer that he favoured "a comprehensive strategy that doesn't just rely on bullets or bombs but also relies on agricultural specialists, on doctors, on engineers, to help create an environment in which people recognise that they have much more at stake in partnering with us and the international community than giving in to some of these extremist ideologies".

This will be music to many European ears, especially as it seems to be accompanied by a dropping of demands for more combat troops from Nato allies after a recognition that such demands would be rejected.

Despite Mr Obama's still-soaring opinion poll ratings in Europe, his policies are likely to be much less popular than the man.

The United States is famously the land of the permanent campaign and Mr Obama would be foolish if he were not already thinking about his re-election prospects in 2012. His programme of events in states such as Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Nevada indicate that he is no fool.

"If Barack Obama were a European in drag, he would be on a highway to hell as far as his re-election prospects," said Representative Mark Kirk, a Republican.

His appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was in one respect an attempt to constrain his main Democratic political rival. But it was also a signal that foreign policy would in important respects be sub-contracted.

Mrs Clinton, who is formidably capable but is no confidante of Mr Obama's, is likely to enjoy considerable autonomy.

So, against the backdrop of a drab and damp Washington day, Mr Obama, with Schieffer's active assistance, seemed most eager to talk about domestic matters.

Even in the portion of the interview notionally set aside for foreign affairs, much of the discussion was about how to deal with the violence of drug cartels on the Mexican border.

"We've got to reduce demand for drugs. We've got to do our part in reducing the flow of cash and guns south… You know, obviously there have been calls to increase National Guard troops on the borders. That's something that we are considering."

Gordon Brown has talked of a "grand bargain" or "global New Deal" being brokered at the Group of 20 meeting in London, but Mr Obama's aides, recognising that the prevailing mood in Europe is for increased financial regulation and not yet more spending, have scaled down expectations.

At a White House press conference on Tuesday, when just one of 13 questions was about foreign policy - asked by a British reporter working for a French wire service - Mr Obama said that at the G20 he wanted to say to allies, "Let's do what's necessary in order to create jobs and to get the economy moving" and "Let's avoid steps that could result in protectionism that would further contract global trade".

Those are extremely modest aims. Once he leaves London, Mr Obama will deliver an address at the Nato summit in Strasbourg and give a speech in Prague that will touch on nuclear proliferation, the role of the European Union and missile defence.

Although he will also visit Turkey, his aides are now saying that he will not use the occasion to make the major address to the Muslim world from an Islamic country that he promised in the first 100 days of his presidency.

Now, however, Mr Obama realises that his presidency – and his re-election prospects – will stand or fall on whether he can turn the American economy around. Although the steps taken by other nations can assist him in this endeavour, he already seems to have concluded that the time he would need to spend wringing small and grudging concessions from the French and the Germans is probably not worth the return.

Once the overseas trip – which has come too early for the White House's liking – is over, one senses that Mr Obama will return home with a degree of relief that it's over and a renewed eagerness deal with the more pressing domestic concerns that now preoccupy him. In that respect at least, most Americans will be right behind him.

The Daily Telegraph, 27 March 2009

Can Obama win us back?

President Obama is losing friends - and the G20 will be a further test, writes Toby Harnden in Washington.

When he visited Europe last July, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, stood before 200,000 in Berlin's Tiergarten park to declare his "global citizenship" and call on the "people of the world" to "come together to save this planet". It was heady stuff, and the rapturous reception was one befitting a new political messiah after eight wilderness years. Back in the United States, the young senator ended his stump speeches with a vow to "change the world". Americans craved affection from abroad. Europeans were eager to fall in love.

But that was eight months ago, and the innocence of that summer has started to evaporate. Mr Obama has become the first black man to occupy the White House, but the world is in the grip of the worst economic depression since the Thirties, with no path back to prosperity in sight.

While the troop surge in Iraq that Mr Obama so vehemently opposed has succeeded beyond his imaginings, the "good war" he championed in Afghanistan is spiralling downwards and there are dark mutterings on the Left about it becoming his Vietnam.

For all the mutual goodwill, the transatlantic policy battle-lines are drawn. The Americans want additional economic stimulus measures to be taken across the globe. The Europeans are preoccupied with a supra-national financial regulation structure.

Mr Obama's demands for more European boots on the ground in Afghanistan have already been rejected by the French and Germans.

As the new American commander-in-chief embarks on his first extended foreign trip in Air Force One, stopping in London for the G20 summit, Strasbourg for a gathering of Nato, and going on to Prague, Ankara and Istanbul, the sheen is already wearing off his shiny new presidency at home.

The leak-proof, supremely well-organised campaign and the post-election transition that was hailed as being one of the smoothest in history are over. They have given way to an at times stumbling administration that struggles to fill the cabinet, botches its message and has all but abandoned the bipartisanship candidate Mr Obama promised.

Far from changing the world, Mr Obama has barely looked over his shoulder at it. The person he has entrusted his foreign policy to is Hillary Clinton, a bitter campaign rival whose diplomatic credentials he once mocked. To appoint her Secretary of State was perhaps an ominous sign, a move designed to keep her from challenging him domestically.

During his first, chaotic weeks in power, Mr Obama's focus has been almost entirely domestic. Key diplomatic posts remain empty. No ambassador is in place in London or Paris. Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, has grumbled that it has been almost impossible to organise next week's G20 summit in Docklands because White House officials are missing in action. "There is nobody there," he says. "You cannot believe how difficult it is."

Obama was elected as the "unBush", and his image of being everything his Texan predecessor wasn't has given him stratospheric popularity ratings overseas that still endure. When he took office, a Financial Times/Harris poll found that 68 per cent of Americans believed he would have a "positive impact on the course of international events". In France, this figure was 92 per cent, in Italy 90 per cent, Spain 85 per cent and Britain – where perhaps some saw echoes of the Tony Blair in 1997 who went on to dash so many hopes – 77 per cent.

During his more multilateral second term, George W. Bush went some way to rebuilding fractured transatlantic ties. But recognition of this did not penetrate much deeper than the level of his fellow world leaders and the political classes. Ordinary Europeans remained intensely sceptical.

The reverse was true with Mr Obama. In the corridors of the Foreign Office and Quai D'Orsay, however, there is already some disappointment. Nile Gardiner, the director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, is a touch hyperbolic when he hazards that foreign governments now see the Obama administration as "poorly managed, ineffective, inept and extremely bad at getting its message across". But there are significant rumblings of concern.

Gordon Brown's visit to Washington earlier this month was a public relations fiasco. Minutes before his meeting with Mr Obama in the Oval Office, British officials were still negotiating details with reluctant White House aides.

Although Mr Obama spoke of the "special relationship", he appeared supremely uninterested in Mr Brown and what he had to say. He did not echo the Prime Minister's call for a "global new deal" on the economy. The usual pomp and ceremony was absent at the White House.

While the fuss over his present to Mr Brown of 25 DVDs of American movies that were rumoured to be incompatible with British DVD players was overblown, the blunder in protocol swiftly came to be viewed as the kind of crass ignorance more commonly – though often unfairly – associated with his predecessor.

When Mrs Clinton met Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Geneva, she cheerily handed him a large red button in a yellow case, with the words "reset" and "peregruzka" written on it in Latin rather than Cyrillic script. It was a reference to the call from Joe Biden, the Vice-President, for a "resetting" of the US-Russian relationship.

"We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" Clinton asked.

"You got it wrong," responded Lavrov, who informed her that "peregruzka" meant "overcharge".

The schoolboy error had happened because the State Department's cadre of Russian translators had been bypassed in favour of Mrs Clinton's political team, who had turned to a Russian speaker who was not up to date with computer terminology.

Little of this will matter to ordinary Europeans, who view Mr Obama and his wife Michelle as a 21st-century version of the Kennedys. For Europeans, they symbolise everything America could be. "There's a certain vicarious sentiment in Europe ... Obama is so popular in part because they see the US as enjoying a multiculturalism they don't have and won't have for a long time," says Charles Kupchan, a Council on Foreign Relations fellow and former senior Clinton administration official.

"Europeans still struggle with these issues and have done a much less impressive job in integrating minorities into the social mainstream, and that gives Obama enormous appeal just as a human being. I expect we shall see that outpouring when he is in Europe."

This will be both an asset and a burden to Obama on his grand tour. For some in Europe, the reality of a President Obama may disappoint. "They may be naively surprised that Barack Obama is an American and not a European in drag," says Mark Kirk, a Republican who is the only member of the House of Representatives to have served in Afghanistan.

Whatever their policy reservations, European leaders such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are clamouring to bask in the reflected glory of the American president. Sarkozy worked assiduously to secure an extra stop in France for Mr Obama and was bitterly disappointed when the White House demurred, Strasbourg not withstanding.

If Mr Obama is skilful, he will use this to secure policy concessions. "He's more popular than European presidents and prime ministers in their own countries," says Kirk. "He's saying the right things on diplomacy with Iran and climate change. There's a danger for European leaders if they don't give him what he's asking for."

And if he doesn't, timing may be partly to blame. The G20 and Nato summits have come uncomfortably early for Mr Obama. In London, there will probably not be enough agreement on the global economy for much more than a vapid joint statement of common aims. It was only yesterday that Mr Obama announced the results of his own internal review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy – leaving little time to twist the arms of Nato allies.

The symbolism of Mr Obama addressing the Islamic world from Turkey, a Muslim country at the intersection of Europe and Asia, will be undeniably powerful. Whether his first major overseas trip will mark the moment Mr Obama matures from a personification of American possibility into a global leader who can take tough choices and secure concrete results remains an open question.