[Yet, the clamor for the re-elected president’s attention came particularly clearly from Israel, where Danny Danon, the deputy speaker of Parliament regarded as a staunch ally of the Republicans, evoked “the existential threat posed to Israel and the West by the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. ”]
By Alan Cowell
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| NYT Video image: |
LONDON — World leaders
on Wednesday sought comfort from the familiar after President Obama’s re-election
but, with the global political landscape substantially unchanged, competed for
his attention and favor as he embarks on a second term with many major issues
unresolved from the first.
In marked contrast to a
euphoric surge four years ago when many hailed Mr. Obama’s victory as a herald
of renewal, the mood was more subdued, reflecting not only the shadings of
opinion between the American leader’s friends and foes but also a generally
lowered expectations of America’s power overseas.
Mr. Obama, one French
analyst said, is “very far from the hopes that inflamed his country four years
ago.”
Yet, the clamor for the
re-elected president’s attention came particularly clearly from Israel, where Danny Danon,
the deputy speaker of Parliament regarded as a staunch ally of the Republicans,
evoked “the existential threat posed to Israel and the West by the prospect of
a nuclear-armed Iran. ”
He urged President Obama
to reassert “the deep and meaningful relationship between the U.S. and Israel,”
and visit Israel for the first time as president. “Now is the time for
President Obama to return to the wise and time-honored policy of ‘zero
daylight’ between our respective nations,” he said.
Mr. Danon is a member of
the conservative Likud Party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has
tense relations with Mr. Obama and who was widely perceived in Israel and the
United States as having supported the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.
“It was our mistake that
Bibi went and kissed the other one before the election,” said Michael Pashko, a
worker in an electrical supplies store in Jerusalem, referring to the prime
minister by his nickname. “Those kisses will cost him dearly.”
Mahmoud Abbas, the
president of the Palestinian Authority, said in a brief statement that he hoped
President Obama would press for peace in the Middle East.
That call seemed
mirrored in Malaysia, where Prime Minister Najib Razak urged Mr. Obama to
“continue in his efforts to foster understanding and respect between the United
States and Muslims around the world” — a relationship to which the American
leader committed himself at the beginning of his first term.
Before the outcome was
known, Chinese analysts had summed up what seemed to be a widespread
calculation that the Chinese leadership, itself scheduled to change in two days
time, favored Mr. Obama “because he’s familiar,” said Wu Xinbo, deputy director
of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. A victory
for Mr. Romney would have made China “a little
nervous because he might bring new policies.”
Chinese President Hu
Jintao, praised the “hard work of the Chinese and American sides” over Mr.
Obama’s first term in creating “positive developments” in their relationship.
“Maintaining the healthy
and stable development of China-U.S. relations not only benefits the people of
the two countries and is in the common interests of the people of the two
countries, but also helps to maintain peace, stability and development in the
Asia-Pacific region and the world as a whole,” the Chinese leader said.
“With an eye toward the
future, China is willing, together with the United States, to continue to make
efforts to promote the cooperative partnership between China and the United
States so as to achieve new and even greater development, bringing better
benefits to the people of the two countries and the people of the world.”
China’s response was
colored by a pre-election pledge from Mr. Romney to label Beijing a currency
manipulator. “With Obama continuing,” said Poon Tsang, a street market vendor
in Hong Kong, “there should be some stability in his relationship with China.”
Across Europe, many
greeted news of the Obama re-election with a sense of mild relief, though it was
not immediately clear whether those feelings were accompanied by any enhanced
expectation that, armed with a new mandate, the Obama administration would find
solutions to the huge challenges still facing it in Iran, Syria and the Middle
East.
Speaking to reporters
during a visit to a camp in Jordan for Syrian refugees, British Prime Minister
David Cameron said early on Wednesday: “Right here in Jordan I’m hearing
appalling stories of what is happening inside Syria.” He added: “One of the
first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and
solve this crisis,” Reuters reported.
But, on the ground,
rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad seemed divided over the
impact of a second term for Mr. Obama. A commander who wished to be known only
by his first name, Maysara, said he expected Washington to take a much clearer
stance within 10 days. “If they don’t, Syria will become like Somalia.”
By contrast, Fawaz
Tello, an opposition figure living in Germany, referred to a Romney proposal to
help the rebels while “Obama made no clear proposals.” A second term for Mr.
Obama, he said, was “not a good sign.”
Mr. Cameron offered his
congratulations in a Twitter message, reflecting the use of social networking
sites to spread word of Mr. Obama’s victory: the French newspaper Le Figaro
said 300,000 people sent Twitter messages announcing Mr. Obama’s victory.
During the election
campaign, Mr. Romney visited London but drew pointed barbs from Mr. Cameron,
and London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, both Conservatives, by questioning the
city’s preparedness and enthusiasm for the Summer Olympics.
Britain is a close ally
of successive American administrations in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
in its response to the so-called Arab Spring, priding itself on what Mr.
Cameron and others call a “special relationship.” Washington’s reach elsewhere
is more ambiguous.
After his election in
2008, for instance, Mr. Obama promised a “reset” with Moscow. But the United
States and Russia took
opposing positions on the Libyan and Syrian crises and the Kremlin has depicted
the American response to anti-government protests in Moscow as undermining the
return to power of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Russian leaders “feel
they have been duped and victimized and the U.S. has it in for them,” said Vladimir
Pozner, who hosts a talk show on Russia’s Channel One. “There is not a lot of
trust in any kind of American administration wanting to improve relations with
Russia. There is a feeling that if Russia disappeared, the United States would
be overjoyed.”
In Indonesia, where Mr.
Obama spent some of his childhood years, students at his former elementary
school cheered his victory, as did elite Indonesians gathered at a party hosted
by the American Embassy. On the streets, motorcycle taxi drivers raised their
fists, shouting “Obama, Obama.”
“He has a good dream for
the world and he doesn’t support violence,” said Asmat Abdullah, a motorcycle
taxi driver perched on a curb in central Jakarta. “Indonesians still believe in
Obama.”
For some Europeans, the
victory offered an object lesson in the politics of economic hardship that has
cost leaders in France, Spain, Britain and elsewhere their jobs.
“Obama has succeeded
where Sarkozy, Zapatero and Brown failed — to be re-elected amid a major
economic crisis,” deputy editor François Sergent wrote in a special edition of
the leftist newspaper Libération in France, whose front-page headline
proclaimed simply: “Yes!”
However, Mr. Sergent
said, Mr. Obama is “very far from the hopes that inflamed his country four
years ago. It is up to him, free from any electoral worry, to show that he can
still change, and change his country.”
Mr. Obama’s re-election
also fed into sharp European debate over the merits of growth vs. austerity to
combat the crisis in the euro zone.
French President
François Hollande said he hoped Mr. Obama’s second term would bring a renewed
focus on economic growth — a theme echoed in Spain where austerity measures
have repeatedly brought protesters onto the streets. Many Spaniards had also
bridled at Mr. Romney’s depiction of their country during a presidential debate as
an exemplar of bad economic management.
“We in Spain wanted
Obama to win because he is more like us, we still see him as a transformative
leader,” said Manel Manchon, a political scientist. “Romney insulted Spain and
you can’s just blame Spain for this crisis.”
Reporting was contributed by Jane Perlez and
Keith Bradsher in Beijing, Hilda Wang in Hong Kong, Isabel Kershner and Jodi
Rudoren in Jerusalem, Ellen Barry and Andrew Roth in Moscow, Sara Schonhardt in
Jakarta, Indonesia, Scott Sayare in Paris, Dan Bilefsky in Barcelona, Spain,
and Tim Arango and Hwaida Saad in Antakya, Turkey.
