World leaders welcome Barack Obama
But their messages contain hints of the challenges the new U.S. president will face.
Reporting from Washington — World leaders impatient for a new direction for America greeted President Obama’s arrival with exuberance Tuesday but sent telltale warnings of the challenges about to envelop the new chief executive and his administration.
The White House was flooded with leaders’ best wishes, including those of Pope Benedict XVI, who urged Obama to be “the promoter of peace and cooperation between nations.”
At the same time, many of the messages were laden with hints of the caution required in dealing with the troubled times ahead. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a conservative who had a good relationship with President Bush, nevertheless said she hoped that in the new era there would be agreement that “no single country can solve the problems of the world.”
Obama, in a nod to the global sentiment and with Bush seated only a few feet away, left no doubt in his inaugural address that an important part of his audience was on the far side of the horizon.
He promised a new era of American leadership, suggesting that the Bush presidency, with too great a reliance on force, had veered from the U.S. approach that had won World War II and the Cold War.
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World leaders welcome Barack Obama – Los Angeles Times.
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Tags: barack obama, History, inauguration, Politics, president, united states, world
