The Cloud over Obama

Well, he finally visited Germany. President Barack Obama gave a speech at the Brandenburg Gate praising Germany and offering more nuclear arms reductions. That said, the only people really happy about his visit were Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Environmental Minister Peter Altmaier. Westerwelle is probably the only foreign minister in the world who would think that suggestions for nuclear arms reduction constitute a “great success.” Meanwhile, Altmaier actually sent out tweets calling Obama’s remarks about environmental protection “one of the most encouraging speeches by a U.S. president.”

These enthusiastic remarks apparently didn’t make a big impression on the other side of the Atlantic. Columnists for the major U.S. newspapers had few opinions about their president’s visit. Apart from factual reports in The New York Times or The Washington Post, there were only a few scattered opinions on the Internet.

The Atlantic Wire was one source that noted the difference from Obama’s 2008 Berlin visit when at least 200,000 people showed up to hear him speak: “He took a lot of criticism from Germans for his choice of location and from his U.S. political opponents who weren’t happy about seeing an American presidential hopeful being adored by tens of thousands of foreigners.” His appearance was nonetheless a smashing success. In 2013 he spoke only to a few thousand invited guests just like any other statesman. In addition, he had to defend his reputation from being tarnished by the PRISM Internet eavesdropping program.

Obama’s 2013 Berlin speech was overshadowed by the effusive praise for Kennedy’s 1963 “Ich-bin ein Berliner” speech and Ronald Reagan’s 1987 appeal to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Besides, both of those were great examples of Cold War rhetoric. The Milan, Italy newspaper Corriere della Sera suggests an attractive connection between those speeches and Obama’s: “There is a common thread in the speeches given by Kennedy, Reagan and Obama at the Brandenburg Gate … The stage setting is Berlin (as well as Germany and Europe), and their words are directed toward Moscow … Obama has come to reap what those before him have sown. In so doing, he seeks to bring the dividends of peace with him back to America, and he invites Vladimir Putin to likewise reduce his nuclear arsenal.”

But doubts about the success of this initiative are everywhere, as was highlighted by the Brussels newspaper De Standaard. It points out that Obama’s modest proposals — which only slightly reduce the destructive potential of nuclear arsenals — are probably the best that can be deemed realistic: The Republicans in Congress are totally against them and early Russian reactions to them are just as discouraging. The question now is: “What would Kennedy do?”