Where Obama has done better is in regions where he has followed the trajectory of Bush’s (and in some cases Bill Clinton’s) policies.

In Africa, he has continued Bush’s widely successful campaign to eradicate AIDS. But there are signs that in some African countries Bush is more popular than the president whose father was a citizen of Kenya.

In Asia, once you get east of the horrifying conundrum of Pakistan, Obama has built alliances, formal and informal, with the major countries ringing China. Foreign-policy analyst Walter Russell Mead hails the recent and first trilateral talks between the U.S., Japan, and India as “history made.”

Obama has built on our rapprochement with India, started gingerly by Clinton and continued with gusto by Bush. Suddenly China finds itself surrounded by nations — including South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and, maybe, Burma — resisting its expansionist thrusts. Japan is buying F-35s, and Australia has agreed to host U.S. troops.