By Matt Spetalnick
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 (Reuters) - From Turkey to the
Philippines to Malaysia, it's been an overseas trip for U.S.
President Barack Obama that often veered off-script.
By now, Obama was supposed to have showcased the
long-promised benefits of his strategic shift toward Asia as he
nears his final year in office. Instead, he has spent much of
his time focused on deadly Islamist attacks half a world away.
White House aides have fretted privately that the timing
could not have been worse.
After struggling for years to prove that his so-called "Asia
pivot" was real, they were hoping to gain more traction now that
it has started bearing fruit in the form of a new signature
trade deal and expanding security ties aimed at countering a
rising China.
But, as one U.S. official said, it did not happen exactly
like planned.
As Obama prepared to wrap up a four-summit trip in Kuala
Lumpur on Sunday, he faced difficult challenges on his return to
Washington - and few good options.
At home, the political clamor is growing for a tougher
approach to Islamic State in response to the deadly attacks in
Paris, and majority Republicans - as well of some of Obama's
fellow Democrats - show no sign of abandoning efforts to block
U.S. acceptance of more Syrian refugees.
Those same issues have dogged Obama during eight days of
travel overseas, leaving the president and his aides to make
their case.
Unexpectedly from a president widely known as "no-drama
Obama", there was a rare flash of anger when he spoke during his
trip of "hysterical" politicians back home whom he accused of
trying to bar Syrian child refugees from U.S. soil to score
political points.
Obama has been to the G20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering in the
Philippines capital Manila, and the East Asian and Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summits in Kuala Lumpur in
Malaysia.
Saturday was an example of how Obama's carefully
choreographed trip had to be shifted on the fly.
In a speech on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit meant to
focus on moving forward on the 12-member Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, Obama started off with
sharpened language on terrorism as fresh details were emerging
about a deadly hotel siege in Mali.
He vowed that the United States would be "relentless,"
saying: "We'll continue to root out terrorist networks."
Obama's latest flurry of summitry illustrated how his
strategy of "rebalancing" U.S. policy toward Asia-Pacific
countries has consistently run into the geopolitical reality
that the persistently volatile Middle East cannot be ignored.
CAUGHT OFF GUARD
But even when Obama was able to focus on Asian matters, he
sometimes seemed to be caught off guard.
At a townhall-style meeting with Southeast Asian youth in
Kuala Lumpur - the kind of event where Obama normally gets
softball questions from adoring audiences - a young Malaysian
told the president the TPP was "a very elitist deal" and pressed
him to defend it.
Another questioner challenged Obama to raise corruption and
human rights with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, and the
president promised he would "definitely" do that.
But Obama was careful not to lodge any strong public
accusations against summit host Najib - although the U.S. leader
brought up the issues with him in private and met civil society
activists on Saturday to hear their concerns.
To be sure, Obama also used his two Asia stops to nudge
China over its growing assertiveness in territorial disputes
with its neighbors in the South China Sea, which aides said was
among his priorities for the trip.
But at the ASEAN summit, the final Chairman's statement
avoided any direct criticism of China, reflecting divisions
among Beijing's smaller neighbors on how far to go in speaking
out, even collectively, against the region's biggest power.
The Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, had sought stronger
language on the South China Sea but did not prevail on all that
it wanted, a source close to the matter said. The White House
declined comment.
Obama's meeting last weekend at the G20 summit in Antalya,
Turkey, also produced some unscripted moments.
He had an unscheduled encounter with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, and although cameras caught the two leaning in
close in intense discussion there was no sign they made any
significant progress narrowing their differences over the Syrian
conflict.
At the APEC summit in Manila, Obama held his first formal
meeting with Canada's young new prime minister Justin Trudeau,
who basked in the kind of "rock star" treatment that the U.S.
president enjoyed at the beginning of his term.
The talks seemed to go well on the surface and could help
repair frayed U.S.-Canada ties.
But there was some disappointment among U.S. officials that
Trudeau stuck to his campaign pledge to remove Canada's
warplanes from the coalition fighting Islamic State, despite the
view that he could have used the Paris attacks as a reason to
hold off on the move.
Obama had also hoped to gain greater attention for his
message on the fight against climate change, an important
legacy-shaping initiative. But that too was nearly drowned out
by the focus on extremist violence.
(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)