Obama's high-profile step on world stage
WASHINGTON (AP) - July 17, 2008 "The stakes are very high for Obama," said Lee Hamilton,
president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
and a supporter of the Illinois Democrat.
While Obama currently leads in the polls, "foreign policy is
one area where they (voters) have their doubts" about him,
Hamilton said.
Campaign officials have announced stops in Jordan, Israel,
Germany, France and England. Obama also has pledged to travel to
Iraq and Afghanistan this summer, but aides have not said whether
those war zones will be part of the same trip.
The trip is planned to put Obama into settings often occupied by
presidents, including formal meetings with foreign leaders, public
speeches and visits to historical sites.
"It's an opportunity for him to sit down with the international
leaders with whom he would have to work as president of the United
States, and discuss some of the issues," said David Axelrod, the
campaign's senior strategist.
Obama has been critical of Bush's foreign policy in his campaign
for the White House, but Hamilton said the Democratic presidential
nominee-in-waiting must tread lightly. "Criticizing foreign policy
in Washington in one thing. Criticizing it in Berlin" is another,
he said.
"There will be a lot of eyes on him, and we know that,"
Axelrod said, when asked about the risk of politically damaging
errors.
Less than four months before the election, Obama's trip comes at
a time when he leads Republican rival John McCain in many polls but
runs no better than even on many foreign policy questions.
In a recent Washington Post-ABC poll, 72 percent of those
surveyed said McCain knew enough about world affairs to serve
effectively as president, compared to 54 percent for Obama.
The two men were in a statistical tie when voters were asked who
was more trusted to handle the situation between Israel and the
Palestinians or the war in Iraq.
Whatever he says or does, Obama will be under scrutiny from
Republicans eager to raise doubts about his readiness to handle
foreign and defense policy.
"This trip is about politics. It's a way for Obama to try and
compete on foreign policy," said Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's
communications director.
McCain has left the country three times since becoming the
likely Republican nominee. A trip to Canada and a second excursion
to Colombia and Mexico were to express support for expanded trade.
In March, he also visited Israel, Jordan, Britain and France.
At home, Obama has struggled to consolidate his support among
Jewish voters wary of his commitment to Israel.
And while Obama is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Ohlmert, Palestinian officials have announced he will visit
the West Bank. McCain did not meet with Palestinians in his most
recent visit to the Middle East in March.
"We welcome this meeting," Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian
negotiator, said recently. He added that if Obama is elected "we
hope he will stay the course between Israel and the Palestinians in
reaching peace and a two-state solution." Bush is trying to broker
a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians before
leaving office in January.
Obama stirred controversy in June with a speech before the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee in which he endorsed a
two-state Israel-Palestine settlement, yet said Jerusalem should
remain both the capital of the Jewish nation and undivided.
Palestinian leaders quickly rejected the statement. "...We will
not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the
capital of a Palestinian state," said Mahmoud Abbas, the
Palestinian president, and the next day, Obama backpedaled.
"Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to
negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of
those negotiations," he said in a CNN interview. He added that
"as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute" a
division of the city.
Stops in Western European capitals are standard for U.S.
politicians seeking to burnish foreign policy credentials, and
Hamilton said government leaders are eager to meet the candidate.
Campaign aides have disclosed almost nothing of the European
itinerary.
Controversy preceded Obama to Germany when aides sought to use
the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin as the site for a speech.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was less than enthusiastic, dispatching
spokesman Thomas Steg to say she had "only limited understanding
for using the Brandenburg Gate as an election campaign backdrop, as
it were, and has expressed skepticism about pursuing such plans."
Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded that the
Illinois senator has "considered several sites for a possible
speech, and he will choose one that makes most sense for him and
his German hosts."
Constructed in 1791 as a symbol of peace in Germany, the gate
stood for 28 years during the Cold War at the heavily fortified
Berlin Wall that blocked off communist East Germany's sector of the
divided city. Probably the capital's best-known monument, it has
been restored as a national symbol for a reunified Germany.