Washington - With a high-profile trip to restore the United
States' global standing behind him, President Barack Obama now
returns to the tough task of converting his ambitious agenda into
reality.
Some of the promises made by Obama during an eight-day trip to
Europe and the Middle East included rebuilding ties with the Islamic
world, remaking the global financial order, defeating al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan, ridding the world of nuclear weapons and agreeing on a
new global deal to tackle climate change.
The White House also points to some firm policy commitments: a
deal to commit 1 trillion dollars to aid the global economy at the
Group of 20 nations summit in London, 5,000 extra troops from Europe
for the war in Afghanistan, the beginnings of a new disarmament deal
with Russia.
But Obama's overtures to foreign leaders and their public were
largely designed to re-set relations after a tumultuous eight years
under former president George W Bush, whose policies and attitude
towards the international community were widely condemned abroad.
The focus of Obama's trip 'was as much about public diplomacy as
about the concrete policy agenda,' according to Charles Kaplan, an
expert on Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. Obama sought to
capitalize on his popularity around the world with a series of
townhall-style meetings, in addition to his talks with world leaders.
Returning to the United States Wednesday morning, Obama planned to
keep an uncharacteristically low profile in the coming days. His only
remaining events for the week were a White House speech Thursday on
health care for military veterans and a roundtable discussion on
interest rates.
Come next week, Obama returns to facing a multitude of domestic
challenges, at the top of which is pulling the United States out of
its worst economic crisis in decades.
News on the economic front deteriorated for the most part in
Obama's absence. Unemployment climbed to 8.5 per cent, its highest
level in a quarter century.
Obama has outlined a sweeping domestic agenda in the first two
months of his presidency, pledging an overhaul of US health care,
energy and education policy. His Defence Secretary Robert Gates put
Congress on notice this week that he will seek a broad and
contentious shift in the US military's spending priorities.
The White House hopes that Obama's show of strength overseas might
provide him with some momentum as he begins to push his far-reaching
agenda through a skeptical Congress.
Initial indicators are that is unlikely. Conservatives derided
much of Obama's trip abroad as a failure, and have become
increasingly emboldened in attacking his domestic plans as a path
towards unsustainable debt.
Newt Gingrich, a former top Republican in Congress, slammed much
of Obama's pledges in Europe as 'fantasy.'
'President Obama gave the Europeans every emotional goody they
could ask for, and they gave him nothing back,' Gingrich said in an
interview with Fox News Tuesday evening. 'I'm not quite sure, in
practical, real terms, what President Obama got out of this.'
The administration insists Obama's first trip overseas was never
designed to get strong practical commitments from allies in Europe.
Rebuilding the relationship 'will require concerted efforts both
to listen more carefully to the perspectives of potential partners
and to find creative solutions,' James Steinberg, deputy secretary of
state, said in a speech to the National Defence University Wednesday.
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