Obama faces test in Europe this week

WASHINGTON — After 69 days in which international issues have taken a back seat to attempts to rescue the economy at home, President Obama takes the world stage this week as a wildly popular figure among the people of Europe but facing a difficult task in selling his plans to the continents' leaders.

The president plans to push for a new approach to the war in Afghanistan, aggressive action to stop the proliferation of weapons and a more united European effort to combat the global recession.

But if the new U.S. president thought his popularity would cause foreign governments to fall quickly into line behind a new American leadership, experts warn, he could be in for a rude awakening.

Still, White House officials describe the trip as a way of confronting the "inherited challenges" left over from the Bush administration, and said they expect the three summits of world leaders he will attend to produce broad agreement on new approaches to economic recovery, fighting terrorism and securing peace in unstable regions.

"We think (the trip) is obviously going to be a fundamental part of the president's agenda of restoring America's standing in the world, and particularly in Europe," said Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

Longtime observers of cross-Atlantic presidential trips say the president retains much of the star power he exhibited during his campaign swing through Europe last summer, when he delivered a speech to more than 200,000 people in a German square.

"It's still a case that European leaders want to be seen next to Obama, preferably with Obama, his arms around their shoulders and a big smile, because he's so popular in Europe," said Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But replacing Bush with Obama has not wiped clean the substantial disagreements that remain between the U.S. and Europe.

"That's an invitation to disillusionment," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "These are complicated times. There's an anger in the world ... about how people think our country has helped create these problems. The president has to lift heavily to get us over the Bush hurdle."

Throughout the presidential campaign, Obama's rivals repeatedly questioned whether his youth and relative inexperience would make him a pushover when he came face to face with world leaders.

Obama's mission now is to lay those doubts to rest, in part by making good on his campaign promise to improve the sometimes strained relations with U.S. allies abroad.

Aides point out that Obama has been engaged in that effort since he took office, calling world leaders almost daily. Last week, he discussed his trip and the global economic crisis with French, German and British leaders, among others.

And between dealing with economic crises, Obama has made a series of moves that have been generally well-received across the Atlantic, ordering the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay closed, announcing a draw down of U.S. forces in Iraq and crafting a new policy for dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he announced on Friday.

"This is his first major multilateral summit," said one senior foreign-policy adviser. "But he's been working the issues all the way back to the transition."

Michael Froman, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, said the president plans to "lead by example," offering his actions domestically — including a stimulus package, regulatory reform, housing proposals and financial-stability plans — as motivation for global action.

Obama's counterparts are struggling domestically with economic crises at least as severe as the one in the U.S. That has led to political instability throughout much of the continent that complicates Obama's upcoming meetings.

Governments have collapsed in Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland and, most recently, in the Czech Republic, where Mirek Topolanek, the prime minister, lost a vote of no confidence. Topolanek currently serves as the president of the European Union but is expected to remain as the host for the organization's summit in Prague on Sunday despite his political problems.

"(Obama's) problem is that everyone is weak. His main allies are very weak. Even his rivals are weak," said Moises Naim, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine. "In the weakness of rivals loom large risk."

The danger, Naim said, is that European leaders are in no position to deliver what the United States wants on the economy or security issues despite their desire to please America's new president.

In addition, he said, many of the foreign leaders have their own domestic reasons to pick a fight with the new American leader, if only to show that they are not bowed by his star power.

That could be particularly evident when Obama meets in a one-on-one meeting with Russian president Dmitrij Medvedev in London.

"Medvedev also has to show that he is as tough as (Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin," Naim said. "The 500-pound gorilla that's not in the room in Putin. Everyone knows, and Putin makes sure that everyone knows, that he calls the shots."

Still, Obama and Medvedev are expected to reach an agreement that could lead to a new arms-reduction treaty between the two nations. The START treaty reached in 1991 expires at the end of this year.

In Prague, the new president will make what aides describe as a "major address" on the proliferation of dangerous weapons. At a summit of NATO leaders, Obama will urge a modernization of the alliance to better fight the security threats from terrorists and rogue nations.

And at the G-20 economic summit, he will call for a new approach to reviving the global economy through government spending, tougher regulation of financial institutions and an embrace of free trade.

In between, the White House promises a series of one-on-one conversations with the leaders of Turkey, Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Korea, China, India and Britain. On Wednesday, Obama will meet privately with the Queen of England. In Istanbul, he will hold a global, video-based town-hall meeting that will allow students from across Europe and Asia to ask the American president questions.

"This is a real test of his leadership," Dale said of the eight-day, five-country trip. "Particularly, I think in the economic section, where the whole world is suffering and there's a real opportunity for the president to show global leadership."