Apr 8th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Most Americans like having a leader whom foreigners adore. But some wish he was feared a bit more





AFTER Barack Obama’s first long jaunt abroad as president, Americans are in two minds. Some are delighted that so many foreigners love him. Others fret, like Machiavelli, that it is often better to be feared than loved, and that the people who ought to fear America don’t take Mr Obama seriously.
Everywhere you go, optimists note, Mr Obama is more popular than his predecessor. European leaders jostle to be snapped standing next to him. Star-struck crowds strain their necks for a glimpse of his wife. At the G20 summit in London last week, the world’s rich nations rallied behind him to tackle the global financial crisis. Mr Obama is well-received even in Muslim countries such as Turkey, where George Bush would struggle to fill a single room with friendly faces. All this goodwill must be in America’s interest.

So far, the optimists form a sizeable majority. Pundits lauded Mr Obama’s performance in Europe. Public approval for his handling of foreign policy rose from 54% in February to 61% at the end of March, according to Gallup. These are impressive numbers. But the same poll found that disapproval of his handling of foreign policy had also gone up by six points, from 22% to 28%. Only the “don’t knows” declined. As Mr Obama starts to have a track record, more Americans are forming opinions about it.

It is all very well, say the sceptics, for Mr Obama to make airy promises about everyone standing together for “the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century”. But his main policy proposal towards that end—the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons—is “a dangerous fantasy”, said Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, in an online chat with readers of Politico, a newspaper.

On April 5th in Prague, Mr Obama reiterated a campaign promise to hold talks with Russia to reduce both American and Russian nuclear stockpiles, to push for a global nuclear test ban and to set up an international nuclear fuel bank to help with peaceful nuclear-energy programmes. The same day, North Korea, which has already made at least one illegal nuclear bomb, fired a test missile over Japan.
Though the missile crashed into the sea, many Republicans think it illuminated Mr Obama’s naiveté. The problem is not the great powers with nuclear stockpiles, they say, but rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iran. Hawks scoff that Mr Obama approaches such rogues with fine words but no stick. He promises that North Korea’s treaty-breaking will have consequences, but so far these have consisted mostly of ineffectual scolding.

The conservative critique of Mr Obama is that he is Jimmy Carter redux: a woolly idealist who thinks he can sweet-talk bad guys into behaving. While he pursues talks with Iran, Republicans fret, Iran’s leaders chuckle behind their beards and carry on enriching uranium. For many conservatives, the defining image of Mr Obama’s European tour was not the adoring crowds but the way America’s new president bowed before the king of Saudi Arabia. Bloggers juxtaposed his cursory nod to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth with the deep bow he gave to the dictatorial ruler of a far less reliable ally.
Such complaints reflect increasing polarisation. A Pew poll this month found that the gap between Mr Obama’s early approval ratings among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) was wider than that of any president in the past four decades. But since the number of Republicans is dwindling, that still leaves Mr Obama with a healthy level of support. For example, 81% of Americans agree with his goal of improving relations with the Muslim world, and 65% trust him to pursue that goal in a way that is “about right”, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week. (Meanwhile, roughly one American in ten still believes, incorrectly, that Mr Obama is a Muslim.)

Most Americans also reckon that, despite his touchy-feely manner, their new president is tough enough. His surprise visit to Iraq on April 7th attracted favourable headlines. Nearly two-thirds of Americans now believe the war there is winnable. Most think Mr Obama is doing a good job in Iraq, and a plurality think his plan to withdraw most American troops by the end of 2010 is about right.

Americans are less confident, however, that things are going well in Afghanistan. Many view Mr Obama’s plan to send more American forces there as a necessary evil. By 51% to 41%, they would rather concentrate on crushing the Taliban militarily than rebuilding the Afghan economy. Conservatives note that, despite Mr Obama’s popularity abroad, America’s allies are sending precious few troops to help him do this.

One or two aspects of Mr Obama’s foreign policy are unpopular at home.
The attempts of his secretary of homeland security to replace the word “terrorism” with “man-caused disasters” attracted much ridicule. More seriously, Americans disapprove of Mr Obama’s plan to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay by 50% to 44%. But since it is unclear what he will do with the inmates—he has left open the possibility of detaining the most dangerous ones indefinitely—that could change. Even less popular is Mr Obama’s lifting of the ban on federal aid for groups, such as Planned Parenthood, which provide abortions or advise about them in foreign countries. Only 35% of Americans approve of this, with 58% opposed.
For the most part, however, Mr Obama’s foreign policies run with the grain of public opinion. For example, he proposes a slight thawing of relations with Cuba. Most Americans have long favoured full normalisation. An embargo persists only because its advocates are more passionate than its opponents, but that too is changing. Cuban-Americans who fled Fidel Castro’s dictatorship for the barrios of Miami still favour sanctions, but their children have long been less sure about them. And since the diehards seldom vote Democratic anyway, Mr Obama may see little risk in upsetting them.

There are even fewer risks in Mr Obama’s recent announcement that he may send extra troops to the Mexican border to curb violence by drug gangs. Alarmed by sensational television coverage—for example, a CNN correspondent breathlessly asked a Mexican gangster how much it would cost to assassinate someone in America—85% of Americans support this idea.

In general, Americans are comfortable with Mr Obama’s preference for talking to troublesome foreigners, rather than blacklisting them. But not if he starts talking to the guys who once sheltered al-Qaeda. An ABC poll last month found that 53% of Americans would oppose negotiating with the Taliban even if they agreed to suspend attacks on American and Afghan forces. And Americans have little faith in global talking-shops: nearly two-thirds think the UN does a poor job of tackling the problems it faces..


Source: The Economist