Obama has a chance to restore U.S. image

Soon after the election, I moderated a panel of journalists from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America who discussed “How the World Sees the U.S. Presidential Elections” for the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.

What they said, along with the reaction from other foreign media and leaders, underlines the remarkable opportunities awaiting President-elect Barack Obama. He has a unique chance to stem the tide of anti-Americanism that threatens our security and our ability to lead.

“That one picture of Obama and his wife, African-Americans, holding hands with (Joseph R.) Biden (Jr.) and his wife was worth more than all of the hundreds of millions this administration has spent on public diplomacy,” said panelist Paulo Sotero, former Washington correspondent for the Brazilian daily O Estado de S. Paulo.

Democratic image

The victory of a black and the level of citizen involvement in the U.S. election have refurbished the nation’s democratic image. It undercuts the efforts of jihadis to bill the United States as the Great Satan.

“Anti-Americanism will not suddenly, magically disappear,” French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy wrote in the Financial Times, a British paper. “But it will have a harder time surviving and it will be forced to revisit its sales pitch.”

Yes, the challenges Obama faces are stupendous, and expectations placed upon him impossibly high. His honeymoon is likely to be brief.

But, as Financial Times columnist Philip Stevens wrote, authoritarians no longer will be able to hide their belligerence “behind America’s unpopularity.” He referred to Russia’s threat, soon after Obama’s victory, to deploy missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kalinigrad unless Washington canceled plans to deploy missile defenses in central Europe. Whatever the wisdom of the U.S. project, Russia’s churlish challenge to Obama is more likely to stir European hostility than support for Moscow.

Stevens also noted that Europeans no longer would be able to use their differences with President Bush as an excuse for failing to contribute to global security. If a President Obama asks for more European troops in Afghanistan, it will be harder to stiff him. As a former British ambassador to Washington, Christopher Myers, put it: “We will be so stunned by him that, for a while at least, it is going to be very hard to say ‘no’ to him.”

This raises the key question of what Obama can do to cement this new U.S. image before the global euphoria wanes.

I put this question to my three panelists; their answers revealed a continued desire around the world for a United States that exerts global leadership, but leadership with a different attitude and tone.

Sotero and Keiko Iizuka, deputy political editor of Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, stressed the need for Obama to put the United States back on a fiscally responsible path. Washington cannot exert leadership on trade or on security issues unless it renews its economic strength and institutions.

Sotero spoke of the need for a President Obama to “engage ... but not preach,” and to abandon the notion that “if you are not with us you are against us.” Brazil, the biggest South American power, may differ with the United States, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work together, he said.

Soft power

Al-Jazeera’s Washington bureau chief, Abderrahim Foukara, urged Obama to stress soft power rather than military action. All three panelists stressed the need for gestures early in the new administration that could change attitudes toward the United States.

Foukara worries about growing anti-Americanism in the Middle East and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. He said he believed an early Obama trip to the Middle East “would have a tremendous impact on the region.

Some news reports say Obama is considering making a major speech in an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office. If the new U.S. leader can strike the right tone, he could buy time and build support for renewed efforts to reach an Israeli-Arab peace.

X Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.