The following article is from our February 2010 issue.

Rude awakening Germans, too, are being forced to take a more realistic view of Barack Obama – By Peter H. Koepf

The party is over. Great hopes have turned into serious doubts. Those who welcomed Barack Obama as a messiah a year ago have now been forced to admit that the 44th president of the United States is only human. His lofty visions have become far distant goals. The president, who formulated grand designs in an almost fundamentalist fashion, is operating – when he operates at all – as a pragmatist.

Now his fans are deserting their former icon. The “post-polarization candidate” (New York Times) has become a polarizing president. “Renunciation of the Savior” was the headline in Munich’s daily Süddeutsche Zeitung – a reference to falling support for Obama in the US.

In Germany, too, those who were most enthusiastic about Obama last year are now voicing the loudest criticism. The president’s former supporters are forced to realize that even with this leader, war – and nuclear weapons – are not about to disappear from the face of the Earth. Nor will the world become a fairer place.

Obama’s speech in Oslo may have been the turning point. When the president accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in December, he said: “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” Since then, not even the Germans have loved the American president quite so much. While in the middle of last year, more than 90 percent of Germans polled said they trusted him, now it is only two-thirds.

All this was predictable. Because, as any politician knows, a leader who states his goals and seeks affirmation and votes for them will be judged on whether he achieves them or not. As far as that goes, Obama himself is responsible for his low approval ratings.

But can we castigate a president for setting goals that cannot be achieved in the short term, let alone within a year? Or for looking into a future of more than just his own four-year term? And is it not a contradiction when Germans, like Americans, demand more leadership but do not want their leaders to change or even regulate very much of anything?

Obama did not cause the world economic crisis. He is not the cause of the current 10 percent unemployment rate in the US. He took over the job at a time when the bubbles of the radical free-marketers were bursting. Obama’s economic stimulus package made a significant contribution to preventing the collapse of the entire system – despite running counter to the faith of the majority of Americans in the free market.

Nor is it the president’s fault that Wall Street bankers are once again collecting excessive bonuses while society as a whole must bear the burden. At least he is the loudest voice criticizing this and seeking to call those responsible to book.

The conservative daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, turned to foreign policy to criticize Obama. Because he plans to raise troop numbers in Afghanistan to 100,000 by June, the paper called Obama a “war president” – even though he inherited the “necessary war” (Obama) in Afghanistan and the “stupid war” (Obama) in Iraq from his predecessor. And it is not just those on the left who accuse him of having “expanded the war into Pakistan.”

In both America and Germany there are enough apostates among politicians and policy experts who were strongly in favor of the Afghan mission and now cannot pull out fast enough. Obama cannot get out. But whether he truly is a “war president” will become clear in Yemen.

It is not Obama’s fault that the leaders in Iran, North Korea, and Beijing have not accepted his outstretched hand. It is not because of him that there was another hail of bombs on Gaza last winter. He will not be the last president unable to keep his promises in such matters.

And lastly, Guantánamo: The prison camp is still operating despite the president’s promise. Only one-fifth of the detainees have been released. On top of that, some of those freed have been linked to new attacks. But what country was truly willing to take in prisoners from Guantánamo?

The German weekly Die Zeit sees Obama as a “tragic hero,” pointing out that he “inherited a weakened America.” But the paper said his election was a “unique opportunity to renew the United States and to reconcile it with the world.” Die Zeit wrote that in the Senate, the smaller states were able to prevent reforms that would have supported the big states – “a situation that cannot remain as it is but which no one can see any way of changing.” In other words, “If the chance is lost, it will not be due to a lack of effort on the part of Barack Obama.”


Picture above: Under pressure: Barack Obama.