Eleven months ago, Barack Obama took office on the wings of a bold electoral campaign which promised to turn the fate of a country facing a waning economy and increasing international isolation. Indeed, “change” was the bold moniker and motto the campaign which swept him into office. Support for the man with such an unusual (for US standards) background was large both in America and abroad. The world awaited patiently for a distancing from the Bush administration’s aggressive and blundered diplomacy, in favor of a more conciliatory strategy. In the US, a few basic questions, such as the question of universal healthcare, and the regulation of the financial market, seemed to find a definite solution.
Barack Obama, not eight months into his presidency, was also awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, to the surprise of many. As a personal sidenote, I must confess I was not surprised or shared the righteous disapproval of some of my peers, since one has just to look a bit into the history of the laureates of the award to realize it has and always will be a political one (Yasser Arafat anyone? perhaps Gorbachev? and before anyone asks, no. not Ghandi). In any case, the international prestige of his presidency is still quite high. I was spurred to write this article by the news of Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops (out of which 5000 will be Nato, so our people) to Afghanistan. In the following few lines, I shall attempt to debunk the myth of Obama the reformer, and show him, on the basis of his actions as of yet, to be nothing more than a mediocre president.
Let us start with foreign policy, since it is this which affect us the most, and what started of my decision to put pen to paper. Obama’s biggest problem abroad lays in the Middle East. His lofty speech in Cairo, promising reconciliation with the Arab world was very well received. In it, he spoke about the question of Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, and the issue of settlements. Hillary Clinton had obtained pledges from the Israeli government for the halting of the expansion of settlements in the disputed areas. Since then, new settlements were created, and the Israelis seem to have forgotten their promises, as did the US Foreign Office. This does not do much but help to weaken moderate elements within Fattah, and push the support toward Hamas. Obama also promised to close down, in a prestige move, the prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba. This was seen as a step away from the extra-legal measures taken by the former administration in order to obtain US security, and a turn toward a lawful manner of handling the terrorist threat. The process since then has been halted, as placement of those imprisoned there on US soil has been increasingly incriminated by the populist right. It seems they will by relocated to somewhere in our vicinity, in prisons in Central and Eastern Europe allies (one of the plans proposed). A relocation though, is a perpetuation of the problem under a different form, a sweeping under the rug, in my opinion.
The establishment of democratic institutions and evacuation, after the quelling of terrorist groups, in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also trumpeted. After a disastrous electoral episode a few weeks ago, Hamid Karzai, retained his presidency. The electoral process was marred by suspicions of corruption, absence due to terrorist threats, the other candidate pulling out of the race early. It seems Iranians can organize a freer election nowadays than Americans abroad. To add insult to injury, many reports suggest that Hamid Karzai’s (himself a former executive at Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s company) brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, is one of the country’s largest drug dealers ( Afganisthan is the opium hub of the globe). In spite of all this, Obama’s administration seems adamant to support them and continue the power struggle by allocating an additional thirty thousand men. In Iraq, few things have changed since Obama took office, and the handing over of authority to the Iraqis was nothing more than a symbolic gesture, since US and Nato troops still occupy the country, and do not seem to begin preparations to leave anytime soon.
On the home front, Obama faced another set of problems, and met them head on with another set of lofty announcements. The recession has been put under control, and it can be hardly attributed to his term in office. But what measures has the new administration undertaken, with galloping inflation and rising unemployment? Firstly, it has propped up the insurance and banking sector with public moneys. The White House Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, has used a curious method to reglement this necessary measure. His terms of granting money to the large investment banks through the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) has lead to non-refundable loans to banks, to use as they saw fit. In many cases, as AIG, bank executives used much of the money to give themselves and senior staff huge bonuses. Also, the finances were used to pay off debts due to risky investments made in collusion with other investment groups. Also, the awaited regulatory legislation upon the financial sector, which was expected to be pushed through the Democratic Party in Congress and championed by the Obama administration, has not come. A recent bill proposing firmer control of the stockholders over executives has met a similar fate. As of yet, banks, large companies, are run by executives who do not own the companies themselves, so are not invested in their long term success or failure. So the premium situation should not come as a surprise. Bills of this nature created by Democrats have not received the open support of Obama.
The issue creating the largest amount of controversy is the proposed healthcare bill. I have watched with shock and awe as the American populist right wing unleashed a huge media campaign against one of the basic rights of any man, that of free healthcare. Obama has been portrayed as a host of evil personae, ranging from Hitler to Mao (I’m not sure what the actual connection is, but it is amusing to watch the American popular imaginary run amock; I must admit, our European myths seem to make a little more sense than theirs, but maybe I’m too subjective). Through all this bile and fear-mongering, one small, but critical detail has escaped the attention of the critics: the bill is not Obama’s creation, and he gave no open support for it since it entered debate on the Congress floor. It is a creation of the Democratic Congressional group, led by Majority Leader Harry Ried and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Obama administration, through the voice of its Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, has disavowed any open support for the Democratic Party’s push to secure a public option in the healthcare reform bill. If the bill passes, it will not have benefited from the lobby of the White House, though sorely needed.
The issues presented above show that a leader elected on a platform of radical change and revitalization of the country has, in spite of popular support and backing of progressive intellectuals, failed to deliver on his promises. He, it seems, prefers to rely more on a conservative tactic, and safeguard the interests of financial, industrial and military complexes, against those of reform and innovation. Food for thought, since we face a similar choice in the near future.
