Barack Obama in 2010

President Barack Obama putts on hole nine while playing golf at the Mid Pacific Country Club in Kailua, Hawaii, on 31 December 2009
Photograph: Jewl Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Obama walks to the Oval Office alongside former US presidents Bill Clinton, right, and George W Bush, left, after speaking about relief efforts following the earthquake in Haiti, during a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House on 16 January Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

President Obama delivers his first state of the union address in Washington on 27 January Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Obama discussing the Start treaty during a phone call with Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in the Oval Office on 26 March Photograph: Pete Souza/AP

Obama meets troops at Bagram air base in Kabul on 28 March. Obama arrived in Afghanistan unannounced on his first visit to the war zone since his election as US commander-in-chief Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

President Obama and Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, sign the landmark Start treaty in Prague, Czech Republic, 8 April Photograph: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features

Obama arrives to speak to the American Nurses Association House of Delegates in Washington on 16 June. Obama spoke about the healthcare reform legislation that had recently been passed Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/EPA

President Barack Obama and vice-president Joe Biden meet with BP executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, 16 June, to discuss the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. From left, are BP chief executive Tony Hayward, BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP general counsel Rupert Bondy, BP managing director Robert Dudley, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, labour secretary Hilda Solis, attorney general Eric Holder and homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano Photograph: Pete Souza/White House

Obama walks with (front to back), former commander of US forces in Iraq General David Petraeus, US defence secretary Robert Gates and US vice-president Joe Biden in the Colonnade before making a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House, 23 June. President Obama announced that General Petraeus will replace US General Stanley McChrystal as top Nato commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal resigned over a magazine article in which he and his top aides criticised the US government. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

World leaders José Manuel Baroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Stephen Harper, Dmitry Medvedev, Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Naota Kan and Herman Van Rompuy line up for photos during the G8 summit at the Deerhurst resort in Huntsville, Canada on 25 June Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

US president Barack Obama signs the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in Washington, 21 July Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

An opponent of a proposed Muslim cultural centre and mosque near the World Trade Centre site, displays signs against Barack Obama at a rally in downtown Manhattan in New York, USA, 5 September Photograph: Peter Foley/EPA

US president Barack Obama and Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh pose after a joint press conference at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on 8 November Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images

Obama and first lady, Michelle Obama, tour the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta on 10 November. Guiding them is Grand Imam Ali Mustafa Yaqub Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters

President Barack Obama talks with from left, Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen and British prime minister David Cameron before posing for the official group photo at the North Atlantic Council summit in Lisbon, Portugal, on 19 November. On the platform looking for his spot to stand is Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP