From the Watch the Feet Not the Mouth Desk:

"In his journey to the White House, Barack Obama made much hay railing against his predecessor’s supposedly go-it-alone mindset and penchant for foreign policy unilateralism. With memories still fresh of the

spectacular rupture between Washington and its traditional European allies over the Iraq war, Obama’s claim to be the 'anti-Bush' garnered him a euphoric welcome in Berlin in July 2008. Speaking before a massive crowd assembled in the 'Tiergarten' (speech text here; video here), he grandly vowed to 'remake the world once again,' this time in a way that allies would 'listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.' A year later, this sort of rhetoric earned him the Nobel peace prize for single-handedly creating 'a new climate in international politics' and restoring multilateral diplomacy to 'a central position.'

The rest of the story:
U.S. Smart Power is Taking a Beating by David J. Karl (Foreign Policy blogs)