by Xinhua writer Jiang Guopeng

    WASHINGTON, April 29 (Xinhua) -- With the slogans "listen," "engage" and "consult," the Obama administration in its first 100 days has made U.S. foreign policy more pragmatic and flexible.

    It launched wide-ranging diplomatic remedies guided by the so-called "Smart Power," in an attempt to fix the "failed policies" of the Bush administration, to build an international environment beneficial for domestic economic recovery, and to strengthen U.S. global predominance and leadership.

    ATTITUDE CHANGED

    By strengthening alliances in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere, cultivating partnerships with key regional powers, building constructive relationships with China and Russia, showing determination on ending two wars and on engaging in the Middle East peace process, and outreaching to Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, the administration's performance on foreign policy has been approved by most Americans, and perhaps by some other governments.

    The performance has shown President Barack Obama's determination to introduce an amiable and smart administration into the international community, and the administration's efforts to seek some kind of change in order to deal with challenges facing the United States:

    From the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the continuing threat posed by terrorists and extremists, to the spread of weapons of mass destruction; from the dangers of climate change, the financial meltdown to worldwide poverty.

    President Obama and his administration have realized that the United States cannot deal with the challenges, mostly international, by itself, although they claim that "none of the challenges can be solved without U.S. leadership."

    Today, America's image and influence are in decline around the world. This is the reality facing the Obama administration, and also the impetus driving those decision-makers in Washington to seek another way to try to keep U.S. predominance in the world.

    Under these circumstances, "Smart Power" is emerging as one of the most fashionable words quoted by officials of the administration.

    "America is likely to remain the preponderant power in world politics after Iraq, but it will have to re-engage other countries to share leadership," Joseph Nye, the co-founder of the international relations theory of neo-liberalism and the founder of the theory of "soft power," said.

    "America's position as the lone global power is unlikely to last forever, and the United States must find ways of transforming its power into a moral consensus that ensures the willing acceptance if not active promotion of our values over time. This will require combining hard and soft power into a smart power strategy of working for the global good," Nye said.

    "America must learn to do things that others want and cannot do themselves, and to do so in a cooperative fashion," added the distinguished scholar, whose understanding of "smart power" has been introduced into the Obama administration's foreign policy as an important guideline.

    TROUBLES UNSOLVED

    During the first 100 days, the administration highlighted three geopolitical strategic focuses: the trans-Atlantic partnership, the trans-Pacific partnership and the Western Hemispherical partnership, through strengthening alliances and cultivating partnerships with key regional powers, such as Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia.

    As one of the most important parts of the U.S. foreign policy, relations with China and Russia have been certainly emphasized. "We will work with China and Russia wherever we can, and we will be candid about our areas of disagreement," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee at a testimony meeting held on April 22.

    And President Obama announced a timetable, as promised during his campaign during the presidential election, for closing the naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, withdrawing troops from Iraq, and to re-engage with Iran and Cuba, both viewed by the Bush administration as an "axis of evil."

    Through the above actions, taken in step with the foreign policy's slogans -- "listen," "engage" and "consult," the president wants to tell the international community that his administration is totally different from the previous one.

    But critics said the so-called changed policies have only enhanced Obama's personal popularity abroad, but not brought better results for solving some tough issues facing the United States, although the administration has newly named senior diplomats as special envoys or representatives as advisers on dealing with affairs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Middle East peace process, nuclear issues of Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

    Since taking office in January, Obama and his administration have put "two wars," "two nuclear issues" and "the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" as top priorities on the diplomatic agenda.

    But the 100-day-long "listen" diplomacy has made no obvious effect on these tough issues. The DPRK's announcement of launching a "satellite" and withdrawing from the six-party talks and the Taliban's enlargement of influence in Pakistan have been viewed as strong blows to the wide-ranging but "listen" diplomacy.

    "That is the main lesson from the first 100 days: It is time for President Obama to begin focusing on the hard work of protecting America and asserting U.S. leadership, not by trying to enhance his personal popularity abroad, but by cashing in on that popularity for the benefit of his country," Kim Holmes, a foreign policy expert in the Washington-based think tank Heritage Foundation, said

    GOAL UNCHANGED

    Responding to the criticism, White House communications official Dan Pfeiffer said the first 100 days were "the policy review and development phase," the next 100 days would be "the policy implementation phase."

    The changed attitude might bring the "amiable" U.S. administration more popularity in the world, but Obama and his foreign policy-making team have to taken active and determined actions to protect core national interests by "prolonging and preserving American pre-eminence," which is the unchanged goal of every U.S. administration's foreign policy.

    According to Secretary Clinton, the U.S. foreign policy "must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology; on facts and evidence, not emotion or prejudice."

    "First, we must keep our people, our nation, and our allies secure; secondly, we must promote economic growth and shared prosperity at home and abroad; finally, we must strengthen America's position of global leadership," she said.

    For the administration's four-year-long tenure, the first 100-day performance is just a start. In the following 100 days, President Obama will face more "post-honeymoon" challenges. Compared to the relative stable relations with other major powers, the above unsolved tough issues will become the real tests for the administration.

    "President Obama should soon begin to translate into tactics and strategy his ongoing conceptual revolution of U.S. foreign policy," Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981, said.

    "Through his statements Obama has started to redefine the basic concepts that guide U.S. foreign policy. But to change actual policies he will have to make specific decisions, with the assistance of his top foreign policy team, regarding how to proceed, at what pace, how to overcome various obstacles and with what sense of urgency to act," Brzezinski said.