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Is Barack Obama Too Naive To Be President?Not in the post-Cold War world.

By Fred KaplanPosted Wednesday, June 4, 2008, at 6:00 PM ET

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John Dickerson responded to the July 23 YouTube debate, noting that Obama had been "more decisive and declarative … and assertive" than he had been in prior forums. Fred Kaplan addressed readers' concerns about fixing American foreign policy and national security in the post-Bush era. Christopher Hitchens examined the meaning of "superpower" and "empire," as they pertain to the U.S. perception of itself. Christopher Beam considered whether Obama's position on negotiations with Iran had grown inconsistent since the July 23 YouTube debate.

The remark did violate an article in the playbook of Cold War diplomacy: that a presidential visit is special, something that the recipient of the visit values above all else and therefore needs to earn; that success must be virtually guaranteed before such a high-stakes trip is taken; and that, therefore, before such a hallowed event can be scheduled, the grunts need to complete all the "spade work," leaving little for the presidents to do beyond signing on the dotted line.

But here's a fact of our times (and Obama seems to have a grip on this, perhaps because he's not so immersed in the diplomatic subculture): A presidential visit is not the cherished commodity that it once was, because the United States is no longer the superpower that it used to be.

When the Soviet Union imploded, so did the Cold War system whose existence bolstered our power and influence. After a while, many leaders—who once turned to the United States to permit, enforce, and legitimize their dealings in the world—began to go their own way, pursue their own interests, build their own alliances, not necessarily against the United States (though sometimes it worked out that way) but, more to the point, without giving much thought to Washington's feelings about the matter.

The Bush administration's many failures have reinforced this tendency. For instance, its lack of success in Iraq and Afghanistan has made our enemies less fearful of our threats and our allies less trusting in our assurances. Its disinclination even to engage in serious Middle East diplomacy has made it politically harder for moderate Arab leaders to side openly with U.S. interests.

Look at the deals that foreign leaders are cutting on their own. Israel and Hamas are talking about a cease-fire, using Egypt as a mediator. Turkey is serving as middleman in talks between Israel and Syria. The political factions in Lebanon worked out an accord, under Qatar's supervision.

These local and regional arrangements are encouraging developments. But, as Robert Malley and Hussein Agha noted in a recent New York Times op-ed, the more these kinds of deals get struck without American involvement, the more marginalized we become. Our already-slackening influence all over the world diminishes still further.

But more than our own power is at stake. These regional peace deals often need a larger guarantor. In many parts of the world, the United States is the only country that has the potential to play that role. It is still the only country that has global reach—politically, economically, and militarily.

No matter who is elected this November, the next president will have to take extraordinary steps to translate this global reach into power and influence—to restore American leadership. One of the main challenges in this effort will be to prove to others that this leadership is desirable.

The new reality is that to a degree we haven't seen in our lifetimes, the United States is a normal country—a very powerful country, but normal nonetheless: not a superpower. A presidential visit, in this light, is not such a big deal. Or, to the extent that some countries might still regard it as a visitation from on high, it may be just the jolt to get things moving.

Either way, not only was Obama's remark not naive; it reflected a more instinctive understanding of the post-Cold War world than either of his opponents seem to possess.