* High hopes for “hope and change” dashed
* Series of scandals abroad dented American image
* Obama still enjoys personal popularity
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) – It was not just U.S.
Democratic voters who were looking forward to “hope and change”
when Barack Obama became the 44th U.S. president.
Around the world, many anticipated the United States would
behave very differently under the new leader. They wanted to
hear less about Americans swaggering and throwing their weight
around. Some, perhaps, wanted more talk of U.S.-style freedom
and democracy, but not if it meant Washington imposing its will.
Few dispute that Obama’s election brought with it a
noticeable change in tone. But 3-1/2 years later, there are
growing complaints that when it comes to substance, relatively
little has changed.
A scandal over the hiring of prostitutes by the U.S. Secret
Service in Colombia, killings and Koran burnings in Afghanistan
and drone strikes in Pakistan have helped fuel an impression of
a United States that globally does what it wants regardless of
others.
Even the “Arab Spring,” some complain, showcased U.S.
hypocrisy: Washington withdrew support from autocratic allies
like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak only when it became clear they were
on the way out while still supporting authoritarian partners in
states such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The failure to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison in
Cuba, where suspected foreign terrorists are held, despite
Obama’s promises both before and after his election, has added
to the disillusionment.
“We were very hopeful at the time Obama was elected,” said
Abdel Rahman Mansour, an Egyptian political activist whose
Facebook postings helped drive the revolution that ousted
Mubarak in February last year. “But nothing happened. Obama
didn’t deliver change but diplomatic rhetoric.”
As it struggles with a slow economic recovery, a potentially
crippling budget deficit and debt burden, and political gridlock
in Washington, some wonder whether the United States itself is
in a slow decline.
A poll released last week by Gallup and conducted across 136
countries showed 46 percent of respondents had a positive view
of U.S. global leadership. That has fallen gradually from 49
percent in 2009 immediately after Obama’s election, the highest
since Gallup began polling on the issue in 2005.
It remains well above the 34 percent recorded in 2008, the
last year of the George W. Bush administration.
Obama is also seen as much more popular internationally than
his presumptive Republican challenger in November’s election,
former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has indicated he
would take a hard line with countries such as Russia and China.
The enthusiasm verging on euphoria that initially greeted
Obama, however, seems to be gone for good.
Karl Lemberg, one of thousands who thronged a Berlin park in
July 2008 for a pre-election address by Obama, says he believed
at the time he was seeing a seismic shift in relations between
the United States and the rest of the world.
Four years later, now married to an American woman and
studying in Washington, he says he has trimmed his expectations,
particularly after learning how Congress limits the freedom of
any president. “I have a much more realistic view of the U.S.
now,” he said.
Some now say the world’s embrace of Obama had less to do
with the candidate himself – and even less to do with his
policies – and more to do with what he was seen to represent as
the first black U.S. president.
“To me, what the Obama presidency has done … is to show
that with good … institutional structures… anybody can rise
up to any level they would want to achieve,” said James
Shikwati, founder and director of the Nairobi-based Inter
Regional Economic Network think tank.
Certainly, the United States – with its enduring if
occasionally troubled democracy, wealth, image and power –
exerts a powerful draw. A separate Gallup poll shows it the most
popular desired destination for potential global migrants.
Most polls show greater trust in U.S. leadership than that
of other powers, such as China. Indeed, Beijing’s rise is seen
prompting many other countries in Asia to tighten relations with
Washington.
ALWAYS A “ROLLER COASTER”
For Obama “it was always going to be a roller coaster,” says
P.J. Crowley, State Department spokesman between 2009 and 2011
and now a university lecturer, pointing to the shift in
expectations after the eight years under Bush.
Global sentiment towards the United States has always ebbed
and flowed. President Ronald Reagan was far from universally
loved in Europe at the time of his Cold War standoff with the
Soviet Union, while presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon
were heavily criticized during the Vietnam War.
But recent months have certainly seen the kind of
image-damaging news flow Washington could do without.
This month’s Americas Summit in Colombia was marred by the
embarrassing disclosure that U.S. Secret Service agents had been
caught bringing prostitutes into their hotel. The United States
also found itself isolated over its tough Cuba policy.
Of greater damage to Washington’s image was a string of
incidents in Afghanistan, where it is struggling to create
security and promote development.
“What happened in Colombia was a distraction from the summit
itself, but that was it,” said Douglas Ollivant, a former
director for Iraq for the National Security Council who is now
at the New America Foundation think tank. “In Afghanistan,
though, there is something of a drum beat of events. And there
it really matters.”
In March, a U.S. Army sergeant was accused of killing 17
Afghan civilians. He was arrested and flown back to the United
States for trial. Before that a video circulated showing U.S.
troops apparently urinating on dead Taliban fighters.
In February, there were protests and reprisals after it
emerged U.S. forces had burned several copies of the Koran.
Jon B. Wolfsthal, a former NSC director for nuclear issues
and special adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, said it was
vital for the government to build up international capital to
help it better weather such storms.
Wolfstahl, now deputy head of the University of Monterey’s
Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said there was a big
difference between recent scandals and some of the more
unpopular actions of the Bush administration, like the use of
controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.
Under Obama the acts were by misguided individuals and they were
not official policy, he said.
In Obama’s first year in office, he said, the president and
his aides pursued a deliberate policy of trying to build
international capital with big speeches in Prague and Cairo so
they could trade off it in later years.
“There are times when it has been very useful,” says
Wolfsthal, pointing to negotiations to get countries to
surrender atomic material or cooperate on sanctions against
nuclear smuggling. “You have national leaders that were willing
to do things they didn’t want to do because they got to meet
with or be photographed with the president.”
Administration insiders said they always knew Obama’s
sky-high global popularity would not be sustainable. Romney
might accuse Obama of too often apologizing for the United
States, but the president’s defenders said he had no problem
making internationally unpopular decisions when necessary.
“I don’t think the Obama administration is particularly any
more worried about what people in the rest of the world think,”
says former NSC member Ollivant, who served both Bush and Obama.
“WE LOVE YOU OBAMA”
Still, in some parts of the world the president remains much
more popular than many local politicians.
When he visited the Indonesian island of Bali for the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in November,
adoring crowds lined the route cheering “We love you Obama.” An
Indonesian provincial governor passing along the same route
hours later was met with jeers and complaints over flooding and
poor roads. Obama lived in the capital Jakarta for three years
with his mother and Indonesian stepfather between 1969 and 1971.
But in Pakistan, where U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin
Laden a year ago and where drones stalk militants in the lawless
tribal areas, Obama’s leadership has proved divisive.
“Things seem to have gotten worse under Obama,” said Shayan
Jafri, 21, a law student in Islamabad. “America has been
violating our sovereignty … how can they expect us to respect
them when they don’t respect us.”
Some Pakistanis do express sympathy with the policy
challenge for the United States. “As long as we are not willing
to solve our own problems, what options do the Americans have?”
said fellow Islamabad resident Ali Qureshi, 28.
It is a similar picture across the border in Afghanistan.
While some Afghans credit the United States – and even Obama in
particular – with some development and security gains, there are
widespread complaints that go beyond the scandals, particularly
over failure to build up the economy and infrastructure.
MOVING BEYOND AMERICA?
In the Middle East, there seems little doubt the Obama
presidency scaled back perceptions widespread under Bush that
the United States was at war with the Muslim world.
Obama’s supporters say that has helped him build regional
and international coalitions to help contain Iran, particularly
when it comes to tightening sanctions designed to rein in
Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Obama administration’s unwillingness to intervene
militarily to prevent the Syrian government from firing on its
own people as it seeks to put down an uprising has upset some.
But another U.S.-led intervention in the Muslim world would have
carried heavy risks.
Given the growing strength of nations such as China, India
and Brazil – not to mention the power of popular unrest showed
by the “Arab Spring” – the idea that U.S. policy might be key to
another region’s destiny is itself being questioned.
Under Bush, many, particularly the Middle East, saw the
United States as a “rogue state” that endangered others. Under
Obama, some believe that while it may sometimes be a stabilizing
force, it could also be becoming quietly less important.
“I have simply moved on from looking at America,” said
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a blogger and political commentator
based in the United Arab Emirates. “It’s not America that is
going to bring change to the Middle East or anywhere else. We
have to look to ourselves, produce the change ourselves.”
The State Department and White House declined comment on
this story.
(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus in Nairobi, Cairo,
Jakarta, Islamabad, Kabul and Beijing; Editing by Martin Howell
and David Storey)
