(U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the Ghanaian Parliament in Accra, Ghana July 11, 2009. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Translated from the French
LE MONDE | 13.07.09 | 15h26  •  Updated 13.07.09 | 15h26

WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

His advisers speak less of an Obama doctrine than an Obama “philosophy”. With the Accra speech delivered on Saturday July 11 in Ghana before a Parliament that was turbulent, sometimes facetious, with opinions expressed loudly as at the House of Commons in London, Barack Obama concluded a series of speeches outlining the main principles of his foreign policy.

On these four occasions — Prague, Cairo, Moscow, Accra — he appeared as the portrait of a moralist who, in Africa, in the Arab world, sees everyone as a part of his responsibilities. For the American president, “moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon.” And also that of a realist, anchored in the idea that state sovereignty is the “keystone” of the international order.

When he took office, January 21, analysts predicted that the economy would monopolise Barack Obama, with the result that he would delegate foreign policy to the Vice-President, Joe Biden, and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Mistake. Mr. Obama showed that he intended to manage everything simultaneously. Under the pressure of a multilateral agenda, he chained the summits [il a enchaîné les sommets] (G20, NATO, G8).

On leaving the G8 meeting in L’Aquila (Italy), Friday, he complained of the increasing number of summits, a phenomenon he attributed to the malfunctioning of the United Nations, which should be the venue of such consultations. “I’m a strong supporter of the U.N. — and I said so in this meeting — but it has to be reformed and revitalized, and this is something that I’ve said to the Secretary General.”

In each trip across the Atlantic, the president took to a stage in a small country to emphasize that “the world is interconnected” and that the problems of the twenty-first century are also settled in Prague or in Accra. These states are, he says, “pivotal” in international relations. “The Velvet Revolution (which caused the fall of communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989) has shown that peaceful demonstrations can shake the foundations of an empire and expose the emptiness of an ideology,” he said , on April 5, at the Prague Castle.

Each time, he wished to speak to young people, to convince them that change is in their hands: “What world order should replace the Cold War?”

In Moscow, July 7, students at the New School of Economics listened [to him] without reaction. “The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground; the future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create,” he said .

For the U.S. President, cooperation has to replace eternal confrontation: “In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries… The pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game – progress must be shared.”

At Cairo University, June 4, Mr. Obama had talked about the tension between civilizations. “This is the speech that he personally worked on the most,” said Ben Rhodes, his speechwriter. For the stage of Ghana, Mr. Obama took his ideas on corruption, developed in light of the example of his father, who rejected the Kenyan government because of his ideas and his clan.

The only speech in which he made concrete proposals is the one in Prague on non-proliferation. He has followed this subject for over twenty years. In 1983, in a text published by the magazine at Columbia University and rediscovered recently by the New York Times, he developed his philosophy: “Break the mentality of war.” He already pleaded for disarmament.

On human rights, the White House believes that Mr. Obama has to speak in global terms. The President does not want to give the impression that the United States gives lessons, after a period when the rest of the world could see that they are not irreproachable.

Unlike his predecessor, George Bush, he chose to approach the issue in very general terms of “universal rights” and not to admonish the government on specific points. “America will not try to impose any system of government on another nation,” he said. “Sovereignty is an inviolable principle.”

From Moscow to Cairo, Mr. Obama did not take head on the issue of freedom for the opposition. In Moscow, Mike McFaul, counsel for Russia, said the White House had conducted an assessment of Russian policy in January, and had concluded that “shaking our finger at the world had not worked so well in the past.” The adviser drew a “parallel” with the response to the repression in Iran, following protests against the presidential elections of 12 June. Opponents are warned, in other words, that Mr. Obama does not intend to mention individual cases, to avoid causing them harm.

The U.S. president has repeatedly stressed the need to respect the sovereignty of States. Asked about the concept of “responsibility to protect”, he replied in a manner limiting sharply his duty to intervene. “The threshold at which intervention is warranted is very high. There must be strong international outrage. This is not always easy to decide,” he said. He asked his administration to consider the establishment of international standards and pressures (economic, diplomatic, …) on countries that do not respect the “universal values” with respect to their citizens.

Corine Lesne