With hopes and doubts,
world awaits Obama
AFP - Tuesday, January
20
HONG KONG, (AFP) - - From stock traders to battle-weary
soldiers to everyday citizens glued to their television screens,
the world was awaiting Barack Obama's swearing-in Tuesday and the
dawn of a new era of US leadership.
Hours before the first African-American president in US history
draws the curtains on the George W. Bush era, the weeks of excited
anticipation were coming to an end with the sombre recognition of
Obama's difficult work ahead.
"Just being elected has allowed Mr Obama to make Americans feel
their country has been lifted to another plane," said the Sydney
Morning Herald in Australia, summing up the feelings of the new
president's strongest supporters.
It is sometimes said, half in jest, that choosing the US
president is too important to be left only to Americans, and Obama
was clearly the choice of many people around the world after eight
years of the deeply unpopular Bush.
"I don't think I've ever seen a time where the international
community was so excited about the election of an American
president," Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under Bill
Clinton, told the BBC.
A BBC poll of people in 17 countries found that most -- an
average of two-thirds -- believe Obama will improve the
relationship between the United States and the rest of the
world.
Obama inherits a wobbly global economy, bloody conflicts in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and a United States whose international
standing is widely seen to be lower than any time in living
memory.
He also comes to power with massive expectations, on everything
from climate change to Middle East peace to disarming North Korea,
and analysts have already warned many of those expectations are
unrealistic.
Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero said the world
economic crisis could be shortened if Obama's administration
inspires confidence. But Russia's Vladimir Putin did not hesitate
to pour cold water on the hopes of optimists.
"I am deeply convinced that the biggest disappointments are born
out of big expectations," the president said.
That bit of plain speaking underlined the difficulties that lie
ahead for Obama, whose wide popularity will soon enough brush up
against the need to take the unpopular decisions of leadership.
He has already acknowledged that dismantling the "war on terror"
prison camp at Guantanamo Bay -- one of the most emotive symbols
around the world of the Bush presidency -- will not be done as
swiftly as once thought.
"It is clear that Mr Obama's election campaign promises are
going to be kept slowly, if at all," Thailand's Bangkok Post said.
"The new president has little adult experience of world
affairs."
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation where
Obama spent four years of his childhood, the Jakarta Post said he
would be seen with affection as a "brother" -- but was also not the
answer to every problem.
"Many in Indonesia, as well as in other Muslim nations, have
certain expectations that the new US president is not likely to be
able to meet" it said.
But for one day at least, the focus will be on the pomp and
pageantry, on the hopes for Obama and the United States, and all
that he has come to represent in his surprising run to capture the
White House.
"Tomorrow he will be prey to politics as usual. Tomorrow he will
be, perhaps, just another president," said the Indian Express
newspaper.
"But leave till tomorrow the concerns and carping: today he is
not just a president-elect, not just a president -- he is a symbol
of all that the democratic spirit can hope to achieve, of the
promise of power open to all."