The failure of Barack Obama

This columnist was an early (February 08) supporter of Barack Hussein Obama, and still considers the current US President as a potential Abraham Lincoln. He has both the mind as well as the charisma to lead his nation from a confrontational to a cooperative relationship with other major powers.

Unlike George W Bush and Dick Cheney, who seemed to be uninterested in any US citizen worth less than a billion dollars cash, both Obama as well as Vice-President Joe Biden have a value system that prizes good above greed. Indeed, Biden has for decades lived a life that in its simplicity is far removed from the grandeur of a US Senator’s existence,even taking the train each week to be back with his family in Delaware.The most precious treasure for any individual is the earning of the genuine love of those close to him or her,and by this measure,both Biden and Obama are wealthy indeed.They each have close families that are obviously at ease with one another.

Neither leader has allowed the passion of prejudice to colour his view about the rest of the world. President Obama,indeed,has made it clear that he acknowledges that the Muslim Ummah is as enlightened and moderate as their sisters and brothers who are Hindu,Jewish,Christian or Buddhist. This public stance despite efforts by traducers to highlight the fact that his father was a Muslim,and that therefore the President’s middle name is Hussein

However,despite his personal gifts and political successes of 2008, a few days ago the voters of Massachusetts elected an Obama-baiter to take the place of the revered Edward Kennedy.In part,this may have been out of pique that they were no longer a “celebrity” constituency. It may – on hindsight – have been better to have persuaded John F Kennedy’s daughter Caroline or another of the prolific and talented Kennedy clan to stand,rather than a nonentity who has been defeated by another nonentity,now become a celebrity. Indeed,the distancing from the candidature of Caroline Kennedy for the New York Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton and the fact that neither her name – nor that of any of her family members – was ever considered to fill a Kennedy family borough indicates the weakeness of Barack Obama : his reluctance to stand up to for his friends and supporters,and his embrace of those who are his enemies. In this quality,Obama reminds one of Prithvirak Chauhan,the Hindu king who defeated Mahmud Ghori in the first Battle of Tarain in 1191 and sent him back with gifts and honour to his kingdom.Ghori soon made common cause with Hindu kings opposed to Prithviraj,and defeated him in 1192. However,unlike the Rajpur prince, the Afghan beheaded Prithviraj and annexed his kingdom,beginning the Mughal conquest of India. Prithviraj’s mistake in allowing Mahmud Ghori to escape after defeat changed the history of the subcontinent

After his own victory in the 2008 Presidential elections, Barack Obama reached out to the candidate he had comprehensively defeated in the primaries,Hillary Rodham Clinton,and handed over the US State Department to her care.He also populated the “Obama” administration with multitudes of Clinton loyalists, even while ignoring the well-merited claims of his own longtime backers for responsibility.Even the architect of the Obama victory,David Axelrod, has only an inconspicous job in the Obama administration, weighted as it is with friends and followers of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Only a handful of backers got prize posts,such as Janet Napolitano,who is now Homeland Security Secretary,although she would have been an excellent Secretary of State.The others who for years worked tirelessly for his success have been cast to the wolves by President Obama.The Democratic Party base had chosen Obama over Clinton.The US electorate had chosen Obama. Yet what they have now got is Clinton Lite. If there is any Obama in the Obama Administration, that quality is in hiding. Had Bill Clinton been a great President,this would not have been as much of a problem as it is now.But the reality is that it was during the amoral period in office of Bill Clinton that – for example – Wall Street was given full freedom to indulge itself in a frenzy of speculative greed.It was no accident that the last order passed by President Clinton in his final six minutes of office was a pardon to Marc Rich,the financier who since then has been ensconced in Switzerland. George W Bush only continued the speculator-friendly policies of Bill Clinton, to a degree that these criminal elements caused the 2008 collapse of the global economy. It was expected of Barack Obama that he would ensure that accountability was fixed and punishment meted out for the excesses of the past two decades. However, he appointed as Treasury Secretary a man – Timothy Geithner – who is himself part of the problem,because of his close personal links to Wall Street.Having given the fox the responsibility for looking after the chickens,is it any wonder that speculators are back at work,sending commodity prices skywards once again?

Although Bill Clinton professed to be a post-racial President,in fact the Clinton adminustration followed the Dean Acheson – Foster Dulles model of seeing only Europe as a serious partner for the US. Bill Clinton was condescending towards the rest of the world,including India and Africa.The only exception was China,a country much courted by the financial and business titans that Clinton relied on for donations. Today,that same Europe-oriented policy is getting followed by Barack Obama, thanks to the fact that he has outsourced foreign policy to the Clintons. In any crucial negotiation, such as over Iran,only European countries are included in the negotiating team, not even India and China. Indeed, the Clintons still believe that they can command India to do the US bidding, in the hectoring way that was attempted over first Kashmir and then the nuclear issue during the 1990s. It is no accident that the new Clinton Lite US Administration has rehabilitated Robin Raphel,who as Assistant Secretary of State during the 1990s did so much to help bring the Taliban to power (although these days,the entire blame for that has been laid at the door of Islamabad). For Raphel treats those countries that do not have

European-ethnicity majorities as places that need to do as they are told,a trait that led to several unpleasant exchanges between her and Indian polocymakers in the 1990s Small wonder that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has returned empty-handed from his visit to Delhi. He had wanted the Manmohan Singh government to sign on to two long-pending agreements, the Communications Inter-Operatability and Security Memorandum of Understanding (CISMOA) and the End-User Verification Agreement. These were on the cusp of getting signed last year,after the Bush administration accepted that Indian objections to some of the clauses in them were valid,such as that US teams would have unfettered and unannounced access to any piece of US equipment (even a screwdriver) at all times, or that India would need to give full information to the US while getting back only a partial feed. Within months of the Obama administation taking office last year, these restrictive conditions once again began to be re-emphasized.

Once again,the attitude of US negotiators became a “Take it or leave it” stand.Defense Minister A K Antony of India decided to leave it,unless a pact that reflected both the mutuality of interests as well as equality of status got formulated. Had there been an “Obama Approach” to the problem, rather than the clumsily payternalistic Clinton approach, Defense Secretary Gates would have left for home with both agreements signed. The Barack Obama administration has once again slowed to a crawl US collaboration in hi-tech and space with India. Once again, Indian scientists are being denied visas to enter the US.Once more, several Indian companies are being threatened with sanctions,just because they seek Europe-level standards of production and output mix. If friends in Pakistan believe that there are tensions between their country and the US,they can be assured that there are equal tensions between India and the US, relations between which seem to have returned to the frost of the Clinton years.

It all goes to prove that while Prithviraj Chauhan may have been a nice man,his leniency towards his foes was a disaster. Barack Obama, faced with the loss of his veto-proof Senate majority,is learning the hard way that firmness pays, as does loyalty to those who reflect your views, rather than pandering to those who sought and who seek to undermine you.

It is a reflection of the Obama Presidency that Hillary Clinton (who serially abused him) rides high while Caroline Kennedy (who did so much for him) has been cast aside.

M D Nalapat

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on Jan 22 2010. Filed under Editorials, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry