Repeating Crises for Barack Obama

The new collapse of the euro is no longer missing from the already numerous worries of Barack Obama. In barely two weeks, the American president has had to confront a long series of international and domestic crises, and his inability to resolve them has weighed on his image as the decider. Maureen Dowd, a very progressive opinion columnist for the New York Times, had a cutting judgment: “The man who walked on water is now ensnared by a crisis under water.” If he does not quickly right the situation, he himself will become a serious handicap for the Democrats in the November elections.

On the international front, the recent events of Gaza have been disastrous for Washington’s foreign policy. America has much to lose in the divorce of its two most loyal friends in the Middle East, its perception in the region and a NATO member like Turkey. Preoccupied by not seeming too “soft” toward the Muslim world (a reproach that the conservatives often direct at him), the American president has incurred the opposite result: by avoiding condemnation of the Israeli aggression against the (so-called) humanitarian ship, he has exasperated Ankara, now feeling let down by the United States.

Turkey can resort to retaliations fraught with consequences: currently a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council, the Turkish government has the ability to hamper sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program — another important piece of American foreign policy that may fall victim to the contradictions of Barack Obama.

In the Far East, the combative regime of Kim Jong Il scoffs at every attempt of dialogue sent by Washington to dissuade them from pursuing their nuclear armament projects. The North Korean aggression against a military ship of South Korea has caused tension to resurface on the peninsula, where 28,000 American soldiers are still stationed. Barack Obama has not yet found the proper recipe, if he is not to hope for assistance from China. In Japan, the downfall of Prime Minister Hatoyama was the direct consequence of concessions he had made with the United States over the military base in Okinawa.

The health of the eurozone is also a new major problem. Barack Obama is worried about the excessively rapid increase in the dollar, which hurts American industry two-fold: “made in USA” products increase in price causing the realized profits in Europe by American multinationals to be reduced when they are returned to the U.S. Even more serious, the politics of fiscal stabilization cause the fear of a relapse of Europe into recession, with heavy consequences on American growth. From the point of view of Washington, it is dangerous that Germany is adopting bleak cuts in its budget while the country has leeway for boosting its internal demand.

Finally, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — the most severe ecological disaster that America has ever known — continues to polarize the attention of American public opinion. At its start, the administration seemed passive, although the law requires the petroleum company to mobilize all methods to remedy the disaster. But the “Yes we can” president has been humiliated in the role of a powerless spectator. He embodied during his election the return of the state and of politics from the hands of the market. Now the Obama administration has turned out to be weak, incoherent, or even compliant, at the hands of the multiple grave violations by the petroleum company BP on its security plan.