By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON - President Obama, who welcomed world leaders to the United States this week, has gone a long way toward meeting his goal of restoring America’s international standing. Foreign counterparts flock to meet with him, and polls show that people in many countries feel much better about the United States.

But eight months after his inauguration, all that good will so far has translated into limited tangible policy benefits for Mr. Obama. As much as they may prefer to deal with Mr. Obama instead of his predecessor, George W. Bush, foreign leaders have not gone out of their way to give him what he has sought.

European allies still refuse to send significantly more troops to Afghanistan. The Saudis basically ignored Mr. Obama’s request for concessions to Israel, while Israel rebuffed his demand to stop settlement expansion. North Korea defied him by testing a nuclear weapon. Japan elected a party less friendly to the United States. Cuba has done little to liberalize in response to modest relaxation of sanctions. India and China are resisting a climate change deal. And Russia rejected new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program even as Mr. Obama heads into talks with Tehran.

For an administration whose officials regularly boast of having what they call “the best brand in the world,” there is what Stephen Sestanovich calls growing “frustration with what other countries are prepared to contribute to advancing supposedly common interests.”

Personal relations are important, said Mr. Sestanovich, a former Clinton administration ambassador with ties to the current team, but national interests still dominate. “That’s what American presidents generally discover,” he said.

James K. Glassman, who served as Mr. Bush’s last under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and now leads the former president’s new research institute, said popularity only went so far. “I wouldn’t say it’s not important to be well liked. It is important. But there are other factors involved,” he said. “What you need to do is find out where you have mutual interests.”

Whether Mr. Obama can use his international regard to promote those mutual interests remains a major challenge. While he was playing host to world leaders at the opening session of the United Nations and then at an economic summit meeting in Pittsburgh on September 24-25, attention was focused on whether Russia would reciprocate for Mr. Obama’s decision to replace Mr. Bush’s missile defense program in Europe with a version less threatening to Moscow.

Although the White House denied that its decision was a way to improve ties with the Kremlin, it took some satisfaction in comments by Russian leaders suggesting more flexibility. Obama advisers pointed to a few specific areas where they have won concessions from other countries. Russia, for example, has agreed to a framework for nuclear arms cuts and gave permission for American troops to fly to Afghanistan through its airspace.

Moreover, the Obama advisers said they had gotten strong cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda, particularly from Pakistan, which has led to a string of successful capture- or-kill missions against what they call high-value targets, like the top Taliban leader in Pakistan and the son of Osama bin Laden.

“The fact is that all countries, including our own, are going to act on their own interests,” said Denis Mc- Donough, the president’s deputy national security adviser.

But Craig Kennedy, the president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a public policy institution that provides grants to scholars, said there was an inevitable disconnect because Europeans viewed Mr. Obama as more European in his sensibilities than his policies actually are.

“I suspect that, as real political decisions have to be made, we will see ‘Obama Euphoria’ fade as the Europeans begin to see him more as an American and less like themselves,” he wrote this month.

Mr. Obama’s trouble winning support in some areas overseas reflects the disparate views of him and his policies.

“The problem is he’s asking for roughly the same things President Bush asked for and President Bush didn’t get them, not because he was a boorish diplomat or a cowboy,” said Peter D. Feaver, a former adviser to Mr. Bush now at Duke University in North Carolina. “If that were the case, bringing in the sophisticated, urbane President Obama would have solved the problem. President Bush didn’t get them because these countries had good reasons for not giving them.”

Still, Mr. Obama has shown in the past that he can play for the long term. Advisers and supporters see hope that he can eventually bring Israelis and Arabs together, forge a working relationship with Russia even if not a friendship, reach consensus with allies on Iran and North Korea and build a coalition to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.

“Obama’s early foreign policy steps have been good and appropriate for this country, whether or not they enlist the support of others,” said Robert Hutchings, a former diplomat now at Princeton University in New Jersey. He argued that Mr. Obama’s approach had “laid the groundwork” for “real breakthroughs.”


Obama is popular, but his many challenges include a new Japanese leader, Yukio Hatoyama, who is less friendly to the U.S., left, and Israel’s reluctance to stop settlement expansion.