 "Barack Obama")
President Barack Obama landed in Southeast Asia today for string of summits with Asian leaders, a visit he had hoped would highlight progress in his seven-year charm offensive in the region but was instead overshadowed by the fight against Islamic terrorism in the Middle East.
The terrorist attacks in Paris and talk of reprisals against the Islamic State threatened to cloud Obama's good-news tour to the Philippines and Malaysia this week.
While Obama was ready to talk up his freshly inked trade deal and military cooperation in Asia, the rest of the world was looking for leadership on the Islamic State's relentless terror spree.
It was hardly the first time the Middle East has kept Obama from making the pivot his administration once imagined would be central to his foreign policy legacy.
Instead of ending under Obama's watch, old conflicts in the Middle East have morphed into new, equally intense ones.
Instead of gradually moving to center stage, Obama's agenda in Asia has had to compete for time and attention.
The White House was determined this week to show it would keep a steady focus despite the tragedy that consumed European allies. Obama left Washington as scheduled just hours after the night of violence in Paris left 129 people dead and hundreds more injured.
He has not changed his plans for the nine-day trip that began Sunday at the Group of 20 summit in Antalya, Turkey. Still, at a press conference before he departed for Manila, Obama was asked only about his strategy for countering Islamic terrorism.
"This is another variation on the same question," he said, exasperated by the repetition. "Let me try it one last time."
At back-to-back summits in Manila and Kuala Lumpur, Obama was expected to highlight recent evidence of long-sought progress in Asia.
Recent elections in Myanmar, where activist Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party won overwhelming victory, were a boost for Obama's foreign policy team, which has been deeply involved in guiding the shift away from military control.
On Tuesday, Obama was slated to tour the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, a Philippine Navy frigate once owned by the US and now considered one of the most advanced in Southeast Asia.
The visit was staged to call attention to a defense cooperation agreement cemented last year that gives the US new access to some Philippine military bases.
