Obama Finally Steps Down From His Pedestal

A president who, before the directors of the United Nations, reflected on how to better combat world poverty, yet who saw the number of poor increase by four million in one year. A head of the White House who calls on the world to turn its back on “cynicism” while back home, in Washington, political men and women have never used this same cynicism as much as during this pre-election period. Finally, an American president who proclaims “openness” as if it were a cardinal American value while every day, on the southern border of the United States, illegal immigrants die while attempting to cross the fence separating them from the American dream. …

In one year, since he gave his first speech to the United Nations, Barack Obama — as well as the entire world along with him — has had a lot of time to come back down to earth. The Iranian regime is still as recalcitrant as ever, the Afghan war is still as bloody and useless and the American voters are disillusioned and angry. America’s international friends are even finding fault with his successes. Rebooting the Middle East peace process? It was done without the Europeans, who are choked with indignation. The United States regaining its multilateral reflex? It occurs elsewhere than at the U.N., worrying the small countries left out of the dance — the first among which is Switzerland.

Despite the failures, despite the stifling atmosphere of internal American politics, despite the resentments, Barack Obama’s speech remains implacably coherent, at least rhetorically. It does not exclude others from the possibility of relegating America to the shadows but asks them, on the contrary, to take their own destiny in hand. It does not exclude the formation of new alliances, but asks its members to act in accordance with international law and individual respect. It offers as examples countries as different as South Africa, India or Indonesia. It advocates the existence of a varied world, as varied as it is in reality.

In one year Barack Obama has without doubt come down from his pedestal of being the only model to follow. Standing at the bottom, if one reads between the lines, he appeared to say that this is the way he likes it.