Reality check for Obama's rhetoric in Asia

Nov 19, 2009, 10:37 GMT

Visiting US President Barack Obama displays his skills in the Korean martial art of taekwondo at the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea on 19 November 2009. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak gave him a taekwondo uniform and black belt as a gift during his visit to the office for summit talks. Obama is known to have studied the martial art for four years from 2001, when he was a senator in Illinois. EPA/YONHAPNEWS AGENCY

   Seoul - Perhaps the ayatollahs in Tehran did not react positively to the 'fair offers' by the international community in the nuclear dispute because they were entangled in their own rhetoric, US President Barack Obama ruminated during his visit to South Korea.

   But he could not have described his own situation more accurately with these words.

   Since taking office in January, Obama has outlined a new world of dialogue, cooperation and peace in his own inspired speeches. The new US president has promoted trust in the US superpower with unusual humility and self-criticism.

   But his eight-day tour of Asia has revealed that Obama's words on the international stage have so far yielded almost nothing.

   In particular, aspiring superpower China demonstrated a new self-consciousness and sees little reason to share America's opinions and strategies on important global issues.

   Obama was forced to recognize that fear of the free world's leading power barely exists.

   China's President Hu Jintao had dissidents and opposition leaders arrested or jailed just prior to Obama's visit. He prevented a nationwide television broadcast of Obama meeting students and did not show much interest in meeting the Americans halfway on any issues.

   Obama experienced how the global dominance of the West in general and the US in particular had deteriorated, said an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor.

   Even the New York Times saw in Obama's visit to Beijing a historic turning point, because for the first time China and the US had encountered each other as equals.

   This would have serious consequences for all explosive world issues, Times wrote.

   There could be neither common cause with China against Iran and North Korea if the US demonstrated toughness, nor could any major progress be expected on environmental protection.

   And China's leaders do not want to hear anything about universal human rights either.

   In foreign policy there is no 'immediate gratification,' said Obama's consultant David Axelrod, attempting to justify the lack of results, but he said the visit had achieved progress on the most important topics.

   This is doubtful, especially since Obama finds himself increasingly with his back to the wall.

   He himself stressed that a wait-and-see attitude with Tehran and Pyongyang could not be tolerated for long.

   Obama must also act in Afghanistan because, other than deploying more troops, he lacks alternatives, and also cannot count on the assistance of other countries.

   Well into his Asian tour, news on the building of more Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas broke. The White House reacted, by its standards, almost with anger, but Israel had demonstrated that it would not yield to Obama; and neither will China.

   Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama returns from Asia practically empty handed.

   He will shortly be compelled to take decisions that may have far-reaching consequences.

   What policy remains for Washington when Tehran and Pyongyang do not react to pleas or sanctions?

   What chance does Obama have in the Middle East of avoiding the already looming failure of his peace initiative?

   How can he amend the new strategy in Afghanistan, only announced in the spring, to prevent the US from sliding into a second Vietnam or being embarrassed as powerless?

   The new leadership in Beijing, which believes that it can blend dictatorship with capitalism to concoct a recipe for success, has already treated Obama as nothing more than a paper tiger.

   Sooner rather than later he will have to get tough.