Editorial: Obama needs to raise game on world stage

Opinion

It seems more than a mere two years since the United States elected its first black President in a wave of euphoria and hope. Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric and modest charm had promised to break the mould of American politics and bring a new brand of leadership to the world. Disappointment set in a long time ago.

Next Tuesday, President Obama faces mid-term elections that will probably deprive his party of its majority in one house of Congress and possibly both. If that happens his prospects of getting further legislation through the House and Senate will be minimal. He is likely to spend the second half of his term at loggerheads with a Republican Congress and blaming the legislative branch for the federal Government's failings.

None of this bodes well for a world that needs the US economy to improve and looks to the White House for leadership on a range of economic and security needs. The Republicans owe much of their momentum to the "Tea Party" movement that resists tax increases to tackle post-recession budget deficits. Expenditure cuts will also face Republican resistance if they threaten defence allocations or the healthcare and pensions of well-off retired voters.

While the British and French Governments act to curb public spending and reduce entitlements the US economy is likely to remain clouded by fiscal weakness and political irresponsibility. Democrats already console themselves with the idea that from next year this state of affairs can be blamed on obstructive Republicans and that the party's loss of congressional control might even help the President's prospects of re-election in 2012. It has happened before.

But others might wonder what purpose his re-election would serve considering his record to date. He will never regain the golden opportunity that came with his inauguration. No President in memory has taken office with such heights of goodwill.

Certainly he set himself hard tasks. Healthcare reform had eluded previous Presidents, disengagement from wars is easier promised than done, and his first challenge was economic recession. His effort on all fronts has been cautious, sometimes to the point of diffidence, and his success mixed.

The US economy remains more ill than most with high unemployment. The war in Afghanistan smoulders on and one former commander let slip his lack of confidence in the President's direction. Health reform may be the proudest achievement of the Obama presidency but it was a compromise that has given more grist to his opponents than to his own party in this election.

Mr Obama has faced some extraordinary attacks from the fringes of American politics. His mild liberalism has sent some conservative critics into furious flights of suspicion about his birthplace, religious affiliations and nationality. But who would have believed on the day of his election that within a year he would be vulnerable to such diatribes?

America's strange mood at present is probably a product of lingering economic stress and the discovery that their young President is not, after all, a miracle worker. Mr Obama has proved to be a patient, methodical, machine politician who was content for Congress to take the lead on his health bill. Likewise in world forums he has not imposed himself. He is a team player it seems.

On the world stage his position will not be as diminished by Tuesday's vote as his domestic standing will be. The President is less constrained by Congress in foreign policy. It may be Mr Obama's best prospects of re-election now lie in a more forthright stance on international problems. Most of the world would welcome that.