An assertive President Barack Obama got much of what he wanted during his Asia-Pacific trip because the results didn't depend on negotiating with the world. He mostly just announced them. Obama expanded the US military presence in southeast Asia, sent tough signals to China in its backyard, ordered his top diplomat on a breakthrough mission to Myanmar and presided over the jobs-creating sale of Boeing planes to an Indonesian airline company. It was a trip on his terms, unlike the dynamic he has with the US Congress. Obama might as well have borrowed his mantra of “We Can't Wait” — a slogan from his re-election campaign — and applied it to his foreign agenda. Still, Obama returns home without any firm commitments from Russia or China over stiffer penalties against Iran over its disputed nuclear program. Obama insisted that the three countries were unified on preventing a nuclear-armed Iran and he said in general terms that they would figure out the next steps together. The president has few lasting images to show from the nine-day trip, which was ending Sunday with his return to the White House. One was the scene aboard a docked aircraft carrier in San Diego, where Obama saluted veterans and watched a college basketball game.But much of his time was spent in summit ballrooms, without defining moments of diplomacy or much engagement with local citizens. Far from Washington, Obama had few domestic distractions on his nine-day trip. That allowed him to stay on his message of trade, security and human rights. The region was eager for America's presence and influence, often as a counter to China's might. So Obama held more sway and ran into less visible pushback, except for bristling from the Chinese. The White House was careful not to promise too much from this trip all along, making its goals all that much more possible to achieve. This was not, for example, the Middle East, where Obama's many attempts to pull the Israelis and Palestinians back together have left him little to show. It did not hurt that Obama had home-field advantage for about half the time he was away. The United States hosted the yearly Asia-Pacific economic forum for the first in about 20 years. For the site, Obama chose Hawaii, the American foothold in the Pacific and his birthplace.When he made time to squeeze in a political fundraiser outside Honolulu, Obama saw longtime friends and acknowledged the bias for “the hometown kid.” In Hawaii and across Australia and Indonesia, the goal was to show a deep US commitment to the fastest growing part of the world. It is a message with major implications. For example, which region may suffer from coming US defense cuts (not Asia) and how the Obama administration sees a way out of economic stagnation (definitely Asia). Getting the relevance of that message through to voters at home was another matter.
