As a Canadian studying in the United States, sitting from the outside looking in doesn't make U.S. President Barack Obama any less irresistible and I yearn to be taken in by the emotional rapture of his election. Even my most resolutely leftist colleagues have been taken in by his come-hither sweet talk. I have to admit: I was taken in, too, caught in the wave of endless adulatory banter coming from print and TV that have constructed an image of a man who can cure world hunger with a wink and a smile.

I don't think that the allure weakens with a change in nationality. There are plenty of people outside of American political culture who have been taken in by Obama's promise to listen, to talk things out with anyone who is willing to sit at the negotiating table with him. Handsome, articulate and from all the right schools, the temptation is there to let him hold us tight, let him tell us that everything is going to be fine. I can hear the whisperings of our respective prime ministers, wondering aloud whose house he is going to visit first and most often. The response to the possibility of the first dance belonging to Canada has sent the Canadian press into euphoric tizzy.

He is a difficult man to resist, even if you are on the edge of the political dance floor looking in. I had to keep my emotions in check as I felt the pull of his election acceptance speech, feeling so drawn to Obama's exquisite rhetoric and charm. I felt pangs of jealously as I saw the hundreds of young people rush into the street, transported to some place where I wished I could have been.

But before we allow ourselves be enwrapped once again within the enthusiasm that is bound to follow his inauguration address, we should remember who his audience is. For the most part, he won't be talking to the international community, so we should sober up. It is easy to be taken in by the man, to believe that the so-called transcendental figure Obama has managed to straddle nations and politics to become a global figure. It is easy to want to believe that he has managed to transcend the American experience, and broken away from his particular beginnings and become universal.

America's friends and allies normally do well when they engage in a constructive political dialogue with the government, and understand that even if a personal relationship develops between the two leaders, the power of the executive in the United States is not absolute. Good relationships between countries, particularly if they rely on institutional structures that are put in place to protect both parties from taking advantage of one another when emotions get heated, or when other dance partners are jockeying for position, need to build on something stronger than "hope." Besides, flowing rhetoric and youthful enthusiasm aren't going to help governments construct the institutional structures necessary for helping to reverse the deterioration of human security worldwide.

And the last thing that countries dependent on a favorable balance of trade with the United States need to do is get caught up believing that American industry and labor not necessarily in favor of international goods coming into the country are going to lie back, especially in industries that have taken an economic pounding in the last few months. When Obama spoke of the need to listen to people that didn't vote for him, he wasn't talking about people who didn't have the right to vote.

People from countries with lackluster leadership may be desperate to enter into the rapturous embrace with the idea of Obama. But the ideal that a man whose body transcends one race, coming from an island territory that has been imagined to transcend the Pacific, can develop a new political culture that can transcend political conflict is a fantasy.

There is likely the temptation for some to believe that in his call for bipartisanship that he is going to transcend politics, to do what is right and not necessarily popular or what is being called for by the many interests groups that supported his campaign. But this would mean that you are forgetting an important thing about the man: If you don't carry an American passport, he is not your president.

The writer, a longtime resident of Japan,
is completing his Ph.D. in history in the United States.