IT WAS the year the Obama novelty wore off. Obama, in the sense of something bigger than the man himself, an expression of the possibility of change, a brand expressing “hope”, it seemed, had come up against the limits of its possibilities. The man who had campaigned in poetry, governed in prose, now in 2010 stumbled, was “shellacked” in the midterm elections, to use his own expression, and stymied abroad.
It was also a year in which the forces of nature, helped by man's appalling stewardship, reminded us of the real limits of our power: in January, Haiti saw its capital destroyed in the worst earthquake in 200 years. Some 200,000 died. In February, Chile's quake killed 750. In April, BP's Deepwater Horizonoil rig exploded and spewed some 4.9 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, and Icelandic volcanic ash grounded thousands of flights. In August, 800 wildfires in Russia devastated its grain crop, while weeks of flooding in Pakistan killed 2,000 and displaced 14 million.
Little wonder "hope" took a battering, albeit largely in the west, as the Economistput it, in a continuing shift in the global locus of confidence, a new "asymmetry of hope" : "For the past 400 years the West has enjoyed a comparative advantage over the rest of the world when it comes to optimism . . . Now hope is on the move". US pollster Pew reported that while some 87 per cent of Chinese, 50 per cent of Brazilians and 45 per cent of Indians think their country is going in the right direction, 31 per cent of Britons, 30 per cent of Americans and 26 per cent of the French do.
As New York Timescolumnist Roger Cohen put it, "The West suffers from a nagging feeling its time has passed; outside it many countries believe their time is now – or near." The limits of US and western power is sinking in – the former remains the greatest economic and political power on earth but the constraints on it became all the more glaring as the world's emerging economies roared ahead. World production grew by a sturdy 5 per cent, dragged on by the 10 per cent growth in the vast construction site that is China, and the economies of India (9 per cent), Brazil (7.5 per cent), and even Turkey (well in excess of official predictions of 7 per cent). Growth in the US and Europe, meanwhile, inched forward at 3 per cent and 2 per cent respectively.
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That sluggishness in Europe, reflecting the shock of a banking crisis transformed into sovereign debt and political crises, saw its reflection in riots on the streets against austerity measures, electoral drubbings in the UK and France for those blamed, and a real sense in many capitals that the European project, particularly the euro, might itself be threatened.
Currency union was a job half done, not possible unless accompanied by a far stronger measure of economic union. Tighter rules for monitoring national budgets were drafted and agreed and within a year of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, sold on a promise that it would be the last restructuring of the workings of the EU in a generation, a consensus emerged on the need for a new minimalist treaty change to create a permanent bailout fund. But for a reluctant Germany, the engine of European growth and increasingly assertive in its own interest in the union, that will not be enough. It will press for a more far-reaching integration once the mini-treaty is out of the way.
The election in Britain swept aside a tired Labour in favour of a youthful-looking Tory-Lib Dem coalition committed to a massive deficit reduction programme. The fruit of the policy has already been seen on the streets.
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If the EU’s attempt to master the money markets has been fraught, its efforts to stamp its mark on the international stage politically have also disappointed despite the launch of its new diplomatic arm, the External Action Service. Despite its willingness to project itself through “soft power”, often cash, the EU continued to play second or third fiddle to the US.
Nowhere more so than in the Middle East where the EU had, as usual, to sit and watch helplessly from the sidelines as Obama abandoned efforts to bring Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table, following the latter’s refusal to continue an embargo on construction of settlements in the West Bank. And while able formally to wind down its Iraq combat role, Afghanistan continued to take its toll – 6,000 US dead so far, despite policy reviews, extra funding and the deployment of 30,000 additional troops.
A feeble and corrupt Afghan government and Pakistan’s reluctance to crack down on militants stymie the campaign. Now a record 60 per cent of Americans believe the war is not worth fighting. Iran remains intransigent.
At home Obama’s year was dominated by the midterm elections, which saw him lose his ability to set the agenda as Republicans took control of the House and eroded the Democrats’ Senate majority. The campaign unleashed a new force on the Republican right in the form of the populist anti-tax and anti-Islam Tea Party.
Obama’s landmark healthcare Bill passed into law in March to make medical insurance available to 32 million previously uninsured, although a court decision may yet emasculate it. Although the president was able to notch up congressional successes at the end of the year with a stimulus/tax cut package, a repeal of the ban on gays in the military and the New Start arms control treaty, a battered Obama has sunk to a low point in popularity. A turning point? Now he has to begin the climb for re-election in 2012, a transition that will shape politics at home and abroad for the next two years.