Barack Obama is coming: Europe can scarcely contain itself. The Democratic contender for the White House is crossing the Atlantic to burnish his credentials as a world leader. Europeans just want to cheer.
by Phillip Stevens (FT)
July 10, 2008
I have my doubts as to whether Mr Obama will profit much from a series of photo-opportunities with the old continent’s tired and beleaguered leaders. The Middle East leg of his trip may make more news at home. The crowds in Europe will be another story. When he steps out of his pre-presidential limousine Mr Obama can expect to be greeted as a messiah.
As far as Europe is concerned, the US has made its choice. The pundits in Washington may only now be speculating about the possibility that Mr Obama could win by a landslide. Europe has already decided: it will get the American president it deserves. The ballot on November 4 is no more than an irksome formality.
Europeans are almost jealous. After all, when did they last get to cast a vote in a “transformational election”? Even those whose sympathies are with the Republican John McCain are caught up in Obamamania. My bet is that David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative leader, will be as eager as Prime Minister Gordon Brown to catch some of Mr Obama’s stardust.
Only Carla Bruni, partner and chanteuse to France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, can compete in the glamour stakes. The other day an old friend – by day a level-headed diplomat – went so far as to muse about an Obama-Bruni match. Now that, he remarked only half-whimsically, would give global politics a truly handsome couple. Mr Sarkozy, I suppose, might have something to say on the subject. So, one imagines, might Michelle Obama. But watch the body language when her husband turns up at the Elysée Palace.
Youth and charisma are not the only reason Senator Obama stirs envy among Europe’s leaders. He has done what they can only dream of. He has drawn the disenchanted back into politics. Who else has inspired a new political movement, has raised an army of 1.7m volunteers and can boast more than 1m campaign donors?
Little wonder Mr Sarkozy, Mr Brown and Germany’s Angela Merkel are keen to touch Mr Obama’s sleeve. Unsurprising also that Ms Merkel is reluctant to give him a podium at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. It was there Ronald Reagan issued a famous call for the Soviet Union to “tear down this wall”. Mr Obama would draw a crowd to shame the former president – and, more importantly, any serving European leader.
Sober voices struggle to be heard. This week I heard Bruce Katz, a vice-president of Washington’s Brookings Institution, lead an excellent discussion on the future of US politics. Inter alia, Mr Katz’s presentation underscored the gap between the preoccupation of US voters with domestic issues – the economy, energy prices, jobs, healthcare, the state of the cities – and the casual assumption of Europeans that the election is about nothing but US foreign policy.
I suspect that his caution – the election, he told the Smith Institute in London, is a competitive race – was lost on his audience. The thought that resonated was that the outcome would turn on the voters’ judgment of whether Mr Obama had the character to match the charisma. On this pivotal issue, Europeans have already made up their minds: Mr Obama is the real thing.
During George W. Bush’s presidency anti-Americanism has been rife. The old affection, though, has not been extinguished. Nor has the ingrained admiration for American ideals. Mr Obama provides a reason to swap the jeers for applause.
Deep in European foreign ministries, of course, there are hard-bitten diplomats cautioning against all this euphoria. The new president, whether Mr Obama or Mr McCain, will face the same problems. He will put the US national interest first. And the leader of what is still the world’s most powerful nation will never think like a woolly postmodern European.
Mr Obama plans to visit Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel as well as Europe’s three biggest capitals. He will see for himself, these diplomats say, the intractability of the challenges. It is not enough that he is an engaging fellow; and, of itself, engagement will not persuade Iran to surrender its nuclear ambitions.
I think these diplomats are overly pessimistic about Mr Obama’s ambition to change the rules of the game. Those in Europe’s corridors of power have grown so used to timorous politicians that they have forgotten the power of politics.
But you can see the dangers for the Democratic candidate. Adulation comes with a price tag. If he does win in November – and this columnist, at least, is sticking with the conditional – then expectations in Europe may well be even higher than at home.
I have written before about the contradiction in Europe’s view: a demand for US power and a deep distrust of it. Thus on the one hand there is a certain satisfaction that the debacle in Iraq has demonstrated the limits of Washington’s reach. America may still be the sole superpower but it is no longer the hyperpuissance. It must rely on others (Europeans) if it is to act effectively in the world.
On the other hand, there is an assumption that it is still America’s job to fix things. Why should Europe spend more on defence when the US has more ships and warplanes than the rest of the world put together? Of course, Europe shelters under the US security umbrella. But do not ask it to risk too much of its own blood and treasure in the effort to make the world a safer place.
I exaggerate only slightly. Everywhere I go in Europe, I come across laundry lists of demands on the next US president – whether it is Mr Obama or Mr McCain.
The US must embrace a low-carbon economy as a prelude to signing up to a successor to the Kyoto protocol. It must show due respect to the United Nations as the fount of legitimacy in relations between states. It should join the International Criminal Court and commit itself more fully to the chemical weapons convention. It should breathe new life into the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Oh, and by the way, it must broker peace in the Middle East, leave Iraq a peaceful democracy and make a viable state out of Afghanistan.
It is worth saying that many of the suggested policy shifts are in US as well as European interests. The central foreign policy task of the next president will be to rebuild the legitimacy of US leadership. But as they cheer Mr Obama, Europeans need to make up their minds about what they have to offer.
