Why Brown is Too Big for Britain.(International Edition)(Gordon Brown)

Byline: Stryker McGuire; McGuire is a NEWSWEEK Contributing Editor.

In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been all but consumed by a wildfire of parliamentary scandal, Labour Party infighting, domestic-policy missteps and profound national anxiety over an economy in turmoil. He stood down calls for his resignation last week, but if he's not forced out sooner, he's virtually certain to resign after the next election, which must be held within the next 12 months. Brown lacks the tools to stage a comeback at home. And yet around the world, his stature is still rising.

This is the tragedy of Gordon Brown. Qualities that are perceived as weak points at home--his seriousness, his longevity of experience, his plodding intellectuality--are his strong points abroad. Barack Obama, for one, has said the world owes Brown "an extraordinary debt of gratitude" for his leadership on global economic recovery. Odd as it may seem, history may well judge Brown to have been better suited to be prime minister of the world than prime minister of Britain.

Brown's interests are, in a sense, too big for Britain. He was the first major world leader to make climate change an economic issue and, under him, Britain was the first country to put legally binding limits on carbon emissions. He made African debt relief and aid a centerpiece of his foreign policy and, even in these cataclysmic economic times, British aid commitments to Africa have grown as a percentage of shrinking GDP.

The G20 summit Brown organized in London in April was his greatest showcase, at least as viewed from abroad. Having been chancellor of the Exchequer for 10 years, Brown knew many of the presidents and prime ministers personally, and was steeped in the intricacies of the financial system that was collapsing around them. At home, that experience made Brown seem stale, and complicit in creating the mess. At the G20 he was in his element--an instinctively global leader wading through esoterica that most people couldn't grasp, ...