It has taken a long time, but the world’s fantasies about Barack Obama are finally crumbling. In Europe, once the headquarters of the global cult of Obama, the disillusionment is particularly bitter. Monday’s newspapers were full of savage quotes about the perfidy of the Obama-led United States.

尽管有些姗姗来迟，但世界对巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的幻想终于开始瓦解。欧洲曾经是全球奥巴马崇拜症的大本营，但如今这里的幻灭感尤为强烈。周一的新闻报刊充斥着人们怒斥奥巴马任下美国背信弃义的言论。

Der Spiegel, the German magazine that alleged that America’s National Security Agency has bugged the EU’s offices, thundered that “the NSA’s totalitarian ambition . . . affects us all . . . A constitutional state cannot allow it. None of us can allow it.” President François Hollande of France has demanded that the alleged spying stop immediately. Le Monde, Mr Hollande’s hometown paper, has even suggested that the EU should consider giving political asylum to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower.

声称美国国家安全局(NSA)窃听欧盟(EU)办公机构的德国周刊《明镜》(Der Spiegel)高呼：“NSA的极权主义野心……影响了我们所有人……这是一个宪政国家所不可容忍的。我们所有人都不能容忍。”法国总统弗朗索瓦•奥朗德(François Hollande)要求美国立即停止其据称从事的间谍活动。法国《世界报》(Le Monde)甚至建议，欧盟应考虑向NSA泄密者爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)提供政治庇护。

But if liberals wanted to compile a list of perfidious acts by the Obama administration, the case of the bugged EU fax machine should probably come low down the list.

但假如自由派人士希望将奥巴马政府所有的背叛行为列成一张表，截获欧盟的传真恐怕只能列在较低的位置。

More important would be the broken promise to close the Guantánamo detention centre and – above all – the massive expansion of the use of drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, It has gradually dawned on President Obama’s foreign fan club that their erstwhile hero is using methods that would be bitterly denounced if he were a white Republican. As Hakan Altinay, a Turkish academic, complained to me last week: “Obama talks like the president of the American Civil Liberties Union but he acts like Dick Cheney.”

比它更严重的是奥巴马在关闭关塔那摩监狱的承诺上食言，而名列榜首的是大举增加无人机攻击，以猎杀巴基斯坦、也门等地的恐怖分子嫌疑人。奥巴马总统的外国粉丝渐渐意识到，假如这位他们一度拥戴的英雄是一位共和党白人总统，那么他采用的手段将被外界强烈谴责。土耳其学者哈坎•阿尔蒂纳伊(Hakan Altinay)上周曾对我抱怨：“奥巴马说起话来像美国民权同盟(American Civil Liberties Union)的主席，做起事来却像迪克•切尼(Dick Cheney)。”

It is not just Mr Obama’s record on security issues that disappoints the likes of Mr Altinay. Liberals in Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Iran and elsewhere complain that the US president has been far too hesitant about condemning human rights abuses in their countries. Or to adapt Mr Altinay’s complaint – when it comes to foreign policy, Barack Obama campaigned with the human rights rhetoric of Jimmy Carter but has governed like Henry Kissinger.

阿尔蒂纳伊等人失望的不只是奥巴马在安全问题上的做法。土耳其、埃及、俄罗斯、伊朗等国的自由派还抱怨，美国总统在谴责他们国家侵犯人权方面表现得过于优柔寡断。或者借用阿尔蒂纳伊的句式——在外交政策上，巴拉克•奥巴马在竞选时高喊吉米•卡特(Jimmy Carter)的人权论调，但主政时却像亨利•基辛格(Henry Kissinger)那样现实。

Yet those who argue that the world was duped and Mr Obama is simply a fraud are making a mistake. Before disappearing into a lather of anger and disappointment, Mr Obama’s critics should consider some counter-arguments.

但如果说奥巴马只是个欺世惑众的骗子，那就错了。在被愤怒和失望的情绪吞噬之前，奥巴马的批评者应当考虑几个反面观点。

First, some of the decisions that President Obama has made that liberals hate are partly a result of some other decisions that they liked. Foreigners have largely applauded the Obama administration’s decision to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, if you are not going to go after your enemies on the ground, you may need other methods. Mr Obama’s controversial expansion of the drone strike programme is closely linked to his reluctance to deploy troops on the ground.

首先，奥巴马总统做出了一些自由派憎恶的决定，但这些决定在一定程度上源于自由派拥护的其他一些决定。奥巴马政府决定结束伊拉克和阿富汗战争，基本上获得了外国人的欢迎。然而，如果你不打算在战场上追击敌人，你可能需要别的打击方式。奥巴马在争议声中扩大无人机攻击计划，与他不愿部署地面军队密切相关。

Similarly, Mr Obama has rightly received some credit for his decision to end torture of terrorist suspects, including such practices as waterboarding. But the need to gather information on terror threats remains – and the massive expansion of electronic monitoring is partly a response to that.

类似地，奥巴马决定不再对恐怖分子嫌疑人实施水刑等酷刑，并理所应当地得到了一些赞许。但收集恐怖主义威胁的信息这个需要依然存在，大规模增加电子监控在一定程度上就是奥巴马的应对之策。

Europeans respond that bugging the EU’s Washington office has nothing to do with the “war on terror”. True enough – but is it really so surprising that allies sometimes eavesdrop on each other? The British have occasionally debated whether they should spy on the Americans – and only turned the idea down on the grounds that they would inevitably be caught,

欧洲人的回答是，窃听欧盟驻华盛顿办事处与“反恐战争”毫无关系。这话没错，但盟友之间有时互相监听，这真的很出人意料吗？英国人偶尔也围绕是否应当监听美国人而展开辩论，最后只是因为他们难免会被发现、从而严重损害美英“特殊关系”而作罢。法国人据信针对美国实施了商业间谍活动。以色列特工乔纳森•波拉德(Jonathan Pollard)被判有罪证实，以色列对美国从事间谍活动。

causing severe damage to the “special relationship”. The French are thought to have conducted commercial espionage, aimed at America. The Israelis spied on the US – as the conviction of their agent, Jonathan Pollard, confirmed.

欧洲目前对奥巴马的强烈不满，令人想起美国自由派近年经历的类似幻灭过程。《纽约时报》(New York Times)的莫琳•多德(Maureen Dowd)在一篇专栏中认为，奥巴马比不上迈克尔•道格拉斯(Michael Douglas)在一部电影中扮演的虚构总统形象。奥巴马做出激烈反应，他在近期的一次讲话中对道格拉斯喊话——“迈克尔，你老兄有什么秘诀？难道是因为你是个演员，是阿伦•索尔金（Aaron Sorkin，即道格拉斯所演电影的编剧）的自由派幻想的产物？”

The current European backlash against Mr Obama is reminiscent of a similar process of disillusionment undergone by American liberals in recent years. In one column, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times compared Mr Obama unfavourably to a fictional president, portrayed by Michael Douglas, in a film. This drew a sharp response from Mr Obama, when, in a recent speech, he called out to Mr Douglas – “Michael, what’s your secret, man. Could it be that you were an actor, an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy?”

奥巴马成为世界各地自由派寄托幻想的对象，不完全是他的错。当然，与任何政客一样，他在竞选时大大抬高了人们对他的期待。但“奥巴马狂热症”在2008年兴起后，很快便脱离理性。作为总统候选人，奥巴马对着20万名前来支持他的柏林人能说什么？难道他能说“大家回家吧，这太夸张了”？当上任不久的奥巴马被无缘无故地授予诺贝尔和平奖时，他所能做的，只有大大方方地接受它。

It is not entirely Mr Obama’s fault that he became the vessel into which liberals all over the world poured their fantasies. Of course, like any politician, he pumped up expectations when running for office. But when Obama-mania really took off in 2008, it swiftly moved into a realm beyond reason. What was candidate Obama meant to say to the 200,000 Berliners who turned out to cheer him that year – “Go home guys, this is silly”? When the new president was given the Nobel Peace Prize, simply for existing, all he could do was graciously accept.

当然，人们完全有理由认为奥巴马本应付出更多努力，防止他接手的政府在快速扩充秘密活动的道路上越走越远。“反恐战争”与“大数据”新前景的结合，既创造了机遇，又带来了压力。奥巴马的应对或许有不当之处，但美国总统必须权衡各种压力——包括恐怖主义威胁的继续存在和情报界的固化势力。

It is perfectly legitimate to argue that Mr Obama should have done more to cut back the rapidly growing secret state that he inherited when he took office. The combination of a “war on terror” and the new world of “big data” has created possibilities and pressures – and Mr Obama may have made some wrong calls in response. Yet the US president has had to balance a variety of pressures – including the continuing existence of a terrorist threat and the entrenched power of the intelligence world.

奥巴马生活在现实的世界中，面临着各种艰难的选择。活在幻想世界中的，是他那些头脑过热的批评者。

Mr Obama was living in a real universe, full of hard choices. It was his overheated critics who lived in a fantasy world.