Crises at home sap Obama’s outreach abroad

US: President Barack Obama’s foreign policy of grand gestures has given way in his second White House year to a diplomatic slog in pursuit of elusive but occasionally promising gains.

Obama piled up eyecatching foreign trips in 2009, with a soaring appeal to the Muslim world in Egypt, an online town hall meeting in Shanghai and a starring role at his Nobel peace prize gala in Norway.

But domestic crises have torn at the administration this year, from health care reform to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and Obama has rarely left US soil.

He made a quick trip to Prague, to sign a nuclear deal with Russia — one of his big wins so far — a swift visit to Afghanistan, and spent three days in Canada for the G8 and G20 summits.

Obama’s political foes lie in wait meanwhile, framing a foreign policy narrative for the 2012 presidential campaign.

AFP