This week Barack Obama cemented the impression that he is an unusually gifted and intelligent politician. There is a growing gap between the foreign policy expectations of the Obama administration and the reality on the ground. Take the G-20, for example. The summit in London fueled a big jump in stock exchange markets, but the results achieved left a lot to be desired. The summit did little to address the underlying crisis in the banking system and the credit markets. It also remains to be seen whether the result will be any different than the last summit when it comes to trade liberalization. The G-20 leaders promised to shun protectionism at the first summit in Washington last year, but since then most of the countries involved have passed protectionist measures. But perhaps most disappointing were the results of the NATO summit in Strasbourg. All in all, the European members of the alliance managed to pull together about 5,000 more troops for the war in Afghanistan, and 3,000 of these will be sent only temporarily to provide security during the elections scheduled for August. The US, by contrast, is sending 21,000 more troops to implement the administration's new "AfPak" plan against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The result is that the war in Afghanistan will increasingly be led and fought by Americans.
The picture on the front of global denuclearization is even bleaker. Obama's Prague speech revived optimistic expectations for a nuclear-free world. Yet the speech itself took place against the background of the North Korean missile test. The symbolism of such perfect timing was more than enough to undermine the whole point.
When you add to all this Obama's unreturned overtures to Russia, Iran, Turkey and Cuba, there emerges a disturbing pattern here. The Obama administration publicly declared that it is now willing to "reset" relations with Moscow. Russia took the message, but showed no sign of moderation in its foreign policy vision. The president sent a warm message to Iran, indicating a willingness to open a new chapter in relations. Yet Tehran wants Washington to apologize for all its past mistakes -- including the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Obama visited Turkey partly with the hope that this visit would speed up the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border and give a face-saving reason to backpedal on campaign promises to recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915. Nearly two weeks after the visit such a development remains elusive. And finally last week came Obama's opening to Cuba, only to be rebuked by a stubborn leadership in Havana.
There was a time when foreign policy idealists believed the problem between the world and Washington could be chalked up to only one person: George W. Bush. The transatlantic gap, they argued, was merely a creation of the previous administration and was bound to vanish with new leadership. Well, beware of what you wish for. Gone are the days when there was a convenient excuse to blame everything under the sun on the cowboy diplomacy of the United States.
Today the seats at the table have turned. If we are to talk about disappointment, it is worth noting that the other side of the Atlantic has much more reason to feel frustrated. All this gives much intellectual ammunition for the arguments of neoconservatives such as Robert Kagan, who always believed that Europeans are from Venus and American are from Mars. As Kagan recently pointed out in his Washington Post column, the Obama administration " will have to tacitly accept that most Europeans don't want to send more troops to Afghanistan, spend more on defense or on economic stimuli, impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran or stand firm against any of Russia's many demands. Instead of challenging them to do more, the administration may politely move on without them: the soft unilateralism of low expectations." So much for the beginning of a new era. As the French saying goes. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
