A year into his presidency, Barack Obama recently confirmed what most already realized: that he would fail to fulfil the promise given in his inaugural speech to close the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay within his first year of office.
Between the reluctance of representatives in Congress to accommodate Guantanamo detainees in their districts, the unwillingness of most of the US's international allies to receive detainees themselves and the political impossibility of repatriating them to countries seen as breeding grounds for terrorism such as Yemen – as well as an alarming lack of coordination between US government agencies, as BBC Radio 4 revealed last night - the problem has proved a real headache for the administration, and Guantanamo remains open.
The Obama administration has sometimes appeared to be out of step with US public opinion on some domestic issues in his first year – notably on healthcare reform – and this is an area where failure to fulfil an election promise may actually go down well with the electorate. A new CBS poll suggests that a majority of Americans oppose the closing of Guantanamo.
But other countries are likely to view the issue very differently. Guantanamo has been a running sore for the US's global image and the promise to close it was one of the most powerful symbols of change from the Bush years put forward by the new administration.
Our annual tracking of perceived country influence last year revealed a continued improvement in views of US influence by the global public as Obama took office. With this year's results due in a few weeks' time, we will see whether this improvement is persisting – or whether the latest disappointment has taken the shine off America's rejuvenated image around the world. Watch this space.
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