Barack Obama’s crime has been to see the world as it is rather than as many Americans would like it to be. The president’s foreign policy acknowledges the limits as well as the reach of US power. In the age of rising states, America cannot presume it will always get its own way. To own up to as much does not make for great domestic politics.

Measured against the lofty expectations of two years ago, Mr Obama’s record is at best mixed. The US has reclaimed much of its moral authority. The president is more popular in Europe than are most of the continent’s own leaders. But, pace the hopes of the Nobel prize committee, he has not bestowed peace on the world. Nor has he disarmed America’s enemies and reclaimed its unipolar moment.

A fast-rising and consciously assertive China is flexing its muscles in east Asia; Iran is still in pursuit of nuclear weapons; the Taliban are killing Americans in Afghanistan; Israel and the Palestinians are no nearer to peace; Iraq is at best an unfinished project. The geopolitical picture almost everywhere is one of challenges to US power.