On the campaign trail, S.Carolina 26/1/08 (APPhoto)
It remains to be seen how an inexperienced public representative with an uncritically liberal voting record can become the reconciling planet healer (in a country and world marked by profound differences in political views) that he has promoted himself as. Even as he was elected, developments at home and abroad set the tone.
Liberal California voted against “gay marriage,” something Obama favors. Does this mean that the new president will have to curtail some of his liberal platform on the altar of political compromise, as doubtless he will seek re-election in four years? What, then, will become of the liberal machine from whence he built his powerbase, if the “Obamessiah” displays a yet-unproven nous for compromise? Or bouyed by a Democratic majority in the Houses, will Obama push the type of reworked European social-democratic policies that may, as per the California vote, run aground?
Abroad, Obama’s vacillating reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August set alarm bells off across Eastern Europe, and was noted by a Moscow bouyed and bellicose on the back of high oil prices. Obama had no sooner taken a congratulatory call from Bush than the Kremlin announced it would deploy missiles in Kaliningrad, wedged between Poland and the EU Baltic States, in response to a US missile shield for central Europe. Clearly the Kremlin believes the incoming president – reminiscent of JFK’s rough introduction to international relations at the hand of Nikita Krushchev – warrants a direct challenge.
Obama’s victory
A portion of the globe, courtesy of Mirko Garufi/flickr
A portion of the globe
ISN staff and Security Watch contributors from around the world offer their own personal perspective on the victory of Barack Obama as well as reactions from their regions and prognosis and advice for the incoming administration.
By ISN Security Watch staff
From my teenage years, I have metamorphosed from a Republican into a Libertarian and (never a Democrat) finally, into a being eschewing all “isms,” having found them all sadly unsatisfactory. The Republican phase wore off after I could no longer digest the Christian fundamentalist poppycock around me (such as the Soviets introduced the Beatles to “America” in order to destroy it) and the fact that my fellow party members just down the road happened to have been involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and the Michigan Militia. The Libertarians – ever confused as to how to fuse (in practice rather than just in beautiful theories on paper) their socially liberal and economically conservative agendas – clearly would always remain realistically embryonic. The Democrats I had always associated with a government that was much too large and far too intrusive. Today, it remains unclear to me what any of the parties stand for, exactly.
There are three presidencies that impressed me in some way, mostly in ways I wish to forget. As a child, under Ronald Reagan, I spent a great deal of time locked away in my room drafting blueprints for renovations to our cellar that would allow my family and a few of our pets (it was difficult to choose among them) to survive for at least a short period of time in the event of a nuclear holocaust. My restless nights included frequent propaganda-induced dreams of cute little girls skipping through fields of daisies only to be blown to bits and replaced by an ominous mushroom cloud. Skipping ahead to Bill Clinton, the fear I had felt as a child was gone, replaced with a feeling, when abroad, of embarrassment at being an American. It seemed a time of harmless buffooning, but at least it was not marked by fear. And then the atmosphere of fear returned with George W Bush and the even more dangerous Dick Cheney – and how I longed for the clowning-around days of Clinton, as much as some of the faces of his administration left a bad taste in my mouth. This time, the atmosphere of fear – real, exaggerated and exacerbated – crossed borders, hit global proportions and followed me all the way to Europe.
Though the Republicans have long been associated with security, lauded as the providers of real security, it was clear that they were providing security for an insecurity they themselves had nurtured, if not created. Whether Obama and the Democrats are truly up to the task of fixing the messes left behind by the Bush regime is questionable, but in the very least, I (and many around me here in Bosnia) breathed a sigh of relief when the election results were announced. There seems to be the potential for a return to real diplomacy and a lessening of the fear factor that has kept us tied to our chairs for so long.
Jen Alic, ISN Security Watch Editor in Chief
My first real taste of a racially charged political campaign, and its effects, came in 1991. My hometown had just elected its first black American mayor and the atmosphere was tense. I was with a group of friends at city hall a few days after the election when an old white man passed by and grunted to us, “G*d damned monkeys…taking over the entire town.” I carried the image of that old man with me for years and kept it through this presidential campaign. As a daughter of the US South, I could not fathom most of “white America” crossing the color barrier to elect a candidate who happened to be black.
For the last few months, I’ve argued this point with a vengeance, especially to my colleagues here at the ISN, explaining to them that race was such an important issue and so at the core of the United States, that Obama would not have enough support from whites to get elected.
I’ve spent the last two days in shock, not only because Obama is now president-elect, but also due to the thought that maybe, perhaps, hopefully, race is slowly disappearing from the list of qualities a person contemplates in a candidate, and in a human being. Sure, there are still some holdouts, white and black, who refuse to accept this, but Obama’s victory has shown that people are more concerned about the content of one’s character than the color of their skin.
I was wrong about my fellow Americans, and I couldn’t be happier.
Rashunda Tramble, ISN Security Watch Managing Editor
Experiencing Obama’s victory on the streets of Washington gave you the feeling of being part of a historic moment. Hundreds of people came together to celebrate at 14th and U on Tuesday night, the place where crowds had gathered in April 1968 as word of Martin Luther King’s murder spread, marking the beginning of riots in over 30 other cities in the US. In November 2008, cars jammed Washington streets, with drivers honking their horns, and people from all kinds of backgrounds were celebrating together peacefully. At least 1,000 people gathered in front of the White House, wearing Obama shirts and stickers, shouting “Yes we did!”
Ironically, it was defeated Republican candidate Senator John McCain who captured the dominating feeling in his remarkable concession speech: “[T]hough we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound. […] This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.”
Michael F Harsch, ISN Security Watch contributor
Obama’s election has been met with a previously unseen outpouring of relief and popular rejoicing across the Middle East. Nonetheless, the basic economic, diplomatic and security interests informing US policy in the region remain unchanged, meaning substantive shifts in US stances will be, at best, incremental and slow to take effect.
In recent months we have already seen slight changes in position on Syria and Iran that appear likely to gather steam under Obama and lead to the opening of crucial channels of communication of significance both in easing regional tensions and in building pressure on Tehran, through bringing the Baathist state back into the western fold. However, the bottom line for the US remains the same: buttressing regional allies and allied factions in Lebanon and protecting key energy interests in the face of domestic economic crisis.
In his election night speech, Obama spoke of support for global peacemaking efforts, but only time will tell whether the relative diplomatic quiescence of the US on the Palestinian and Syrian tracks will be transformed into a genuine role in pushing moribund processes forward. Given the damage done to the US’ standing in the region in recent years there are important areas in which foreign policy shifts can bear fruit.
Above all, a move away from the militarization of US foreign policy in the Middle East is required to promote the dialogues Obama appears to desire, including initiatives to prevent escalation in the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Iraq, and to address the US role in promoting an unprecedented conventional arms race in the Gulf and nuclear proliferation. The obsessive focus on the elaboration of counterterrorism mechanisms in response to religio-political militancy – while understandable in light of the 9/11 attacks – has stoked the very phenomenon it has sought to address, and has promoted instability and system failure in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It remains unclear what Obama’s positions on these threats will be, though it is hard to envisage a fundamental change.
There is a lack of detail also on the one shift in policy focus that could make a real difference, and would promote the popular hopes raised by Obama’s election across the region: premising US military and economic aid packages on substantive moves to promote peacemaking and real and inclusive civil and democratic reform – including the incorporation of Islamic movements. Laudable efforts to promote the same under the first Bush administration were abandoned and quickly submerged by the popular opprobrium promoted by the Iraq and Afghan occupations.
Across the region minorities and people living under the yoke of occupation and dictatorial governance do not view the US as protecting the fundamental constitutional rights on which the American republic was founded: the great and noble principles of the equality of man and fundamental right to popular governance and protest. It is whether Obama is willing to allow these to inform basic policy positions that will determine the success or otherwise of his administration’s policies in the eyes of most in the region.
Dominic Moran, ISN Security Watch senior analyst in the Middle East, based in Tel Aviv, and director of operations for ISA Consulting.
I am reluctant to sound alarmist, but keep a close watch on Israeli air force and US naval deployments between now and mid-January, the week prior to Obama¹s inauguration. Many people in the Pentagon and inside the White House have strongly believed for years that the need to eliminate the incipient Iranian atomic weapons threat is urgent, and it is possible that an Obama victory has opened a very brief window for the two countries to cooperate on a limited but concentrated attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
A McCain win would have simply delayed such a step, but as of now, the Bush administration will have to decide, and decide quickly. An actual US attack is less likely than giving Israel the green light and providing as much covert intelligence support as possible. My own guess is that while the chances of such an attack have now risen significantly since Tuesday, the decision will be to do nothing and hand the problem over to the new administration, which may wait until the Iranian presidential election next summer before making a diplomatic initiative.
Obama’s foreign policy is yet to emerge, but many of his principal advisers in world affairs are known quantities: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Dennis Ross, General Tony McPeak, et al. One hears often in the Caucasus and especially in Azerbaijan that the senator is “pro-Armenian,” an assumption based only on Obama’s support for acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. Obama has spoken publicly on this issue, and writes on his website that “It is imperative that we recognize the horrific acts carried out against the Armenian people as genocide,” and has called on the Turkish government to do likewise.
An official acknowledgement from the new Obama administration will cause extreme consternation in Azerbaijan, and may well make it impossible for any prominent Azeri politician within the government or in the pro-democracy opposition to embrace the new US president for some time. This reaction, in turn, may at least temporarily derail the Prague Process by making it difficult to interact closely with America in a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which the US would dearly like to achieve. Even the best of intentions can have unintended and deleterious consequences; we shall see how these issues pan out in the coming months.
Karl Rahder, ISN Security Watch Central Asia/Caucasus correspondent
These elections obviously said a lot about America, but, for me and probably many Americans living abroad, they probably prompted an exercise of compare and contrast with our adopted homes. Two issues struck out in that regard. As I watched a gracious McCain express admiration in his concession speech for Obama’s ability to inspire and Obama soberly (and not triumphantly) talk about working together and the core values of the Republican Party, I thought, “No way could that happen here.” We talk about polarization in the US, but that can’t compare with the bitter hatred between many in the two main parties here in the Czech Republic; it’s simply unimaginable that they would commend each other in any way, shape or form. The lack of cooperation has been a major reason for the lack of key reforms.
On a more personal level, I was disappointed to hear some Czechs I know rather crudely focus on race; they appeared almost stunned that a black man had been elected and joked about the idea of a Ukrainian or a Vietnamese (some of the larger minority communities here) at the head of the Czech Republic. It was simply unfathomable to them to think something similar could happen here – though understandable. After World War II wiped out much of Czechoslovakia’s diversity (the Nazis killing the Jews and the Czechs then kicking out the ethnic Germans) and the Communist regime kept a lid on immigration, the country became incredibly homogeneous. That has changed, slowly, over the past 20 years, but it will certainly take generations still for minority candidates to make any headway in a general election and convince Czechs that they are every bit as Czech as they are. (Not to mention the Roma minority, which has been here for generations).
So we, as Americans, should be rightly proud of both Obama’s election and, at least now, the spirit of bipartisanship, but we need to keep in mind again that the evolution of both our multiculturalism and political system has taken hundreds of years; it might be a valuable lesson for some of the world’s youngest democracies, but they still have a long way to go for something similar to happen in their own backyards.
Jeremy Druker, ISN Security Watch contributor based in Prague and Director of Transitions Online
For over 15 years the projections of American demographers have said to have favored the Democrats – but the political landscape has been dominated by the Republicans. The US is changing and a sharp rise in the number of Hispanics, blacks, Asians and, like Obama himself, mixed-race Americans, has strengthened the potential supporter base of the Democrats, while a rising number of college graduates and an increase in affluence stands considerably in their favor. Both the Gore 2000 and the Kerry 2004 campaigns failed to reach out in such a way to young and ethnic Americans in the way that Obama has.
As the US population center drifts toward the south and west, the growth even in “red states” is potential wind in the Democrats’ sails. A division between Republican and Democrat voters is not so much found between the coastal areas and the interior, but between rural and urban areas within every state. As the countryside continues to empty in states as varied as Montana, Colorado and Iowa, the nature of the contest is changing and corroding the built-in advantage that Karl Rove’s Republicans previously enjoyed. Unexpectedly tight races forced the Republicans on to the defensive in South Carolina, Missouri and even for a short while in Arizona, reflecting the changing internal politics of the red states. The movement has been slight, but the drift has been set in motion. A successful presidency could ensure this becomes the re-alignment election so many are hoping it is.
Obama was the right man at the right time for the Democrats, enabling them to actualize potential support that already existed. He has a charisma unknown in modern politics, and providing he can secure results, has a chance to broaden and consolidate a strong and demographically favored Democratic coalition for the 21st century. Part of the reason for this lies in the fact that Obama possesses the gift of the supreme egotist – that is, the capacity to listen. Few presidents have had time for the most undistinguished steelworker or the poorest Kenyan: Obama has the ability to see in all of these lives, traces of his own.
Ben Judah, ISN Security Watch correspondent in London
The first thought is that I hope the election results illustrate that the American electorate is putting more value on competence. Obama’s campaign was inspiring, intelligent, sincere and so on, but first and foremost I think it was competent. I hope that bodes well.
The second is that I think he’s bound to create a letdown, simply because expectations are so high for him. I think Europe’s intelligentsia may be particularly disappointed over the next several months. Many people in Europe were celebrating the fact that the US had finally elected an internationalist – and it did. But the economic problems at home are so severe that they will have a stranglehold on the new president’s attention. I don’t see him making a European goodwill trip for a while.
Eric J Lyman, senior ISN Security Watch contributor in Rome
Obama inherits a broken relationship with Latin America. Many years of unilateral policy has pressured already strained relationships. He must begin reparations with dialogue. Genuine conversation with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua – countries where the relationships have most deteriorated – would be an excellent start. Obama has an opportunity to revisit the Cuban trade embargo, Washington’s relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the strength of democracy in Bolivia and Ecuador, and economic prosperity in Nicaragua and Central America’s other impoverished nations.
But these issues are only a start. Along with the rest of the world, Latin America awaits a new administration to bring change. Yet the need for a fresh relationship with the region is just one bullet point on a long global agenda. When many problems pile up on the president’s desk, Latin America is normally buried. Will Obama’s desk be any different? Will he make an unprecedented effort to bring the United States closer to Latin America? These questions and many more circulate here in the Americas. Obama has restored expectations for a better future in Latin America, but as many presidents in this region know, the excitement generated at election time quickly sours to disdain as hope slips away.
Sam Logan, senior ISN Security Watch correspondent in Latin America
In South Asia, a region of great ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, Obama’s victory is fervently being hailed as extraordinary, even by the anti-imperial campaigners for whom America-bashing was in-vogue in a post-9/11 world.
But let’s not be in awe of him just because he’ll be the first black president of America, a country that is far from transcending its race inequalities. He inherits the worst economic crisis this century and two unfinished wars, and he will be judged not by the color of his skin but by the strength of his character and the prudence of his policies.
Here in India, his victory is being cheered, but there is reason for some concern as well. Particularly disconcerting to the power brokers in New Delhi is that he wants to end tax breaks for those American companies are outsourcing jobs abroad. If that happens, India’s burgeoning information technology and outsourcing industry – believed to be the engine of India’s economic resurgence – will be hard hit.
Also distressing for Delhi is his view of Kashmir, a disputed territory claimed by both India and Pakistan. In a recent interview he said his administration would encourage India to “solve the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan” so that the latter can cooperate with the US to finish the war in Afghanistan. His view that Pakistan needs to end the insurgency it fomented at home to wrench control of Kashmir because it was lethal to the security of itself and the world, is being welcomed. However, the naïve trade-off between Kashmir and Afghanistan has ruffled many feathers in New Delhi, and his Kashmir policy will be watched closely.
Anuj Chopra, ISN Security Watch South Asia correspondent
The American people have spoken. In the 21 months leading up to this past Tuesday, Obama succeeded in crushing the two most powerful political machines in the US (The GOP and the Clintons), established campaigning norms and a racial barrier that many thought too powerful to overcome. Tuesday’s thumping is a sign that Americans are not only fed up with the direction the country is headed but also that they are still willing and able to risk change and reinvention. Worldwide reactions have also been very favorable, as presidents and people from all over the world have expressed their hope that the first black president in US history will be a welcome change from the extreme unilateralism that has characterized US foreign policy over the past eight years.
While the election is a clear mandate and represents a step in the right direction for US international relations, there is much that Obama needs to do to capitalize on this good will. After 9/11, Bush enjoyed unparalleled worldwide support. He succeeded in squandering that within a few short years. As the excitement of this election dies down, Obama will not be immune from a world that has grown increasingly impatient with the US, and will have to deliver on his promises of multi-lateral cooperation if the US is to truly regain its footing as the world’s most respected international power. At the outset, the change that an Obama presidency represents suggests a better chance for this daunting task.
Eliot Brockner, ISN Security Watch Latin America correspondent
Obama is good news for the rest of the world, including Asia. Beijing, however, will very closely watch the new administration’s trade policies toward Asia and is without a doubt concerned that Obama’s administration and the Democratic Congress will be tempted to get serious about imposing additional tariffs and non-trade barriers on goods made in China to reduce the enormous trade deficit in China’s favor.
Obama has promised to stop “exporting” American jobs to China and elsewhere during his campaign, and there are concerns in China and elsewhere in Asia that this might negatively affect trade and business ties with the US and countries offering a competitive advantage through cheap labor. Beijing is concerned about Obama’s possible protectionist instincts, although if the president-elect decided to go down the path of protectionism seeking to limit imports from China, he would very quickly be confronted with resistance from numerous US multinational companies producing in China who are taking advantage of cheap labor.
Beijing is probably equally concerned about the administration’s stance on human rights in general and human rights policies toward Beijing in particular. China still vividly remembers Nancy Pelosi’s recent meetings with the Dalai Lama and is probably worried that the new US administration and the Democratic-led Congress will give human rights in China a more prominent place on the US foreign and security policy agenda.
While Japan can expect the continuation of close security and defense ties with Washington, Pyongyang might be looking forward to new and potentially more result-oriented ties with Washington.
Obama will, like Bush, insist on the complete de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula before envisioning anything resembling normal diplomatic ties, but Pyongyang might be relieved to deal with a US president who announced he would seek to engage the “rogue states” and countries belonging Bush’s infamous “axis-of-evil.”
Obama might also mean a fresh start of US engagement in multilateral security in Asia, and many Asian countries are indeed looking forward to seeing US unilateralism and Washington’s obsession with the war on terror replaced by a willingness to once again be a part of Asian multilateral security.
Axel Berkofsky, ISN Security Watch East Asia correspondent
In the past 13 years, since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, all major reforms have been initiated and supervised by the international community, led by the US Embassy in Sarajevo. US foreign policy regarding Bosnian stuck to the status quo, regardless of who was in the White House. Unlike the soft and indecisive European method, only American arrogance and bullishness has worked to put Bosnian nationalist politicians in their place and punish them for their obstructive demagogy.
Sentimentally speaking, Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks (in very general terms) seem to prefer Democrats over Republicans, since former President Bill Clinton’s administration was the only one to take decisive action to stop the war in Bosnia, launching the Dayton Peace Agreement and, despite international disagreements, shelling Bosnian Serb military targets in 1995. For the same reason, coupled with NATO’s shelling of Serbia during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, Serbs are no friend to the Democrats, or to the Republicans, for that matter. Among the Bosnian diaspora in the US, many Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks have supported Obama, while Serbs lent more support to McCain. However, it could be said that a majority of Bosnians, regardless of ethnicity, are united in their view that the Bush presidency has been the cause of much of the world’s problems (the never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise in oil and gas prices, the global financial crisis) and many hold out hope that things will change for the better under Obama.
Anes Alic, senior ISN Security Watch correspondent based in Sarajevo and executive director of ISA Consulting
It remains to be seen how an inexperienced public representative with an uncritically liberal voting record can become the reconciling planet healer (in a country and world marked by profound differences in political views) that he has promoted himself as. Even as he was elected, developments at home and abroad set the tone.
Liberal California voted against “gay marriage,” something Obama favors. Does this mean that the new president will have to curtail some of his liberal platform on the altar of political compromise, as doubtless he will seek re-election in four years? What, then, will become of the liberal machine from whence he built his powerbase, if the “Obamessiah” displays a yet-unproven nous for compromise? Or bouyed by a Democratic majority in the Houses, will Obama push the type of reworked European social-democratic policies that may, as per the California vote, run aground?
Abroad, Obama’s vacillating reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August set alarm bells off across Eastern Europe, and was noted by a Moscow bouyed and bellicose on the back of high oil prices. Obama had no sooner taken a congratulatory call from Bush than the Kremlin announced it would deploy missiles in Kaliningrad, wedged between Poland and the EU Baltic States, in response to a US missile shield for central Europe. Clearly the Kremlin believes the incoming president – reminiscent of JFK’s rough introduction to international relations at the hand of Nikita Krushchev – warrants a direct challenge.
Simon Roughneen, senior ISN Security Watch analyst for Africa
There is much sympathy toward president-elect Obama in the Muslim world right now. He should capitalize on this historic moment by immediately starting a massive Marshall Plan for the Middle East to fight poverty and underdevelopment.
If Bush’s failure in dealing with the issue of religious fundamentalism is measured today by his one-dimensional reliance on the efficacy of the military solution, Obama’s success will be seen in how he can get to the root cause of this formidable problem.
The fundamentalists’ spectacular gains in the last three decades is bound up with their social welfare programs and networks. Confront them on their own turf. Build thousands of schools, hospitals, vocational training centers, roads, sewage treatment facilities, credit bureaus, etc. It would be at a fraction of the cost of military spending programs. And do it with no stings attached.
Kamal Nazer Yasin is the pseudonym of an Iranian journalist reporting for ISN Security Watch from Tehran
