Strategically Speaking
Day of deliverance
IN the next few days the closing arguments of both camps will have ended and the campaign trail will be closing up to the finishing line on the home stretch. Some analysts have already awarded the result of the joust in favour of Obama, and if one were to assume that the actual voting pattern will reflect the verdict of the various polls that had been conducted so far, than the American people will very likely have a Democrat in the White House, at least for the next four years.
But nothing can be taken for certain, and no sensible person should take a Democratic victory as a foregone conclusion. However, one thing is absolutely certain -- the world, thankfully, will see the end of the most arrogant and unenlightened presidency whose intellectual deficit and moral bankruptcy have been reflected in US policies, on both political and strategic matters.
November 4 will certainly see the end of a regime that had been motivated entirely by, and relied unhesitatingly on, the use of brute military strength as the primary means of settling issues. One would hope that the American people, too, will see this as a welcome change, and November 4 a day of deliverance from a regime that had increasingly taken the country to the brink of isolationism.
One is very tempted to bypass the question by simply asking: "Does it really matter." Should any one of us in our part of the world, more so those of us belonging to the very low rungs of the third world countries, really worry as to who becomes the 44th occupant of the White House. I feel that there is a stake for everyone in this globe that value justice and peace, in who becomes the next US president; and peace cannot be guaranteed without ensuring justice.
Unfortunately, there was very little "just" that one saw in the policies of the Bush administration in the last eight years. Its resistance to world opinion and absolute reliance on unilateralism, and its unwillingness to subscribe to many important international conventions have caused it to fit the very appellative, "rogue state," that it chooses to characterise those nations that refuse to conform to its definition of world order.
As for South Asia, the Gallup polls (conducted between May and June) show a great disconnect between what the world's most well known pollster calls the world's poorest inhabitants and the politics of the United States. On the average nearly 85% of those polled in the three sub-continental countries did not really bother as to who wins the US election, and a similar percentage has shown the same indifference regarding their preference of candidates.
Interestingly, according to Gallup, only respondents in Bangladesh expressed a statistically significant difference in their preference, favouring Obama to McCain by 19% to 8, and majority of those asked in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh did not express their opinion on whether the US election would make a difference to their country.
One wonders whether public opinion elsewhere in the world projects similar views, but certainly there is need to look at the reasons for this attitude. While no doubt there will be a change in personality, one wonders whether there will be change in any substantive form in the foreign policy under the new dispensation.
As for John McCain, he has found it extremely hard to shed the mantle of a Bush acolyte, and his opponents feel that a McCain presidency will be more of the same of what people saw in the last eight years. Although he has tried to distance himself from Bush, it is perhaps too late for McCain to be taken seriously by the voters when he now criticises Bush's policies.
As for his foreign policy, there is hardly any difference in the tenor of his projection and what is being conducted now. He is willing to stay a hundred years in Iraq if necessary, and he has only recently brought himself round to accepting the necessity to focus on Afghanistan where defeat is staring in the face of ISAF and Nato forces. What the world is eagerly waiting to see from a new Republican president is whether he would persist with the Bush doctrine that was motivated by a warped philosophy of pre-emption, in the strategic realm, and democratisation, in the political realm.
Is there any difference in the strategic position of Obama? What will be his strategic philosophy, particularly with regards to South Asia? In some respect, Obama's position is more nuanced, but one hardly sees any substantive differences between the two. While, for example, Obama makes no secret of the fact that he would not hesitate to violate international borders of a friendly country in pursuit of terrorist leaders (as a part of global war on terror), McCain disagrees, but only to the extent that he feels that such policies must not be voiced aloud.
As regards the Middle East or for that matter stance regarding any Muslim country, Senator Obama is at a considerable disadvantage. He will be weighed down by what I call the "H" factor. He has gone out of his way to prove to the American people that he is not a Muslim and the "H" in the middle of his name has no significance at all -- if only he could dispense with it.
One can hardly blame him for that, given some of the comments from the McCain supporters, no outsider can be blamed for thinking that it is a crime to be Muslim (or an Arab) in the US. He has bent over backwards to convince the Israeli lobby that there would be no better a friend of Israel than he, and that he would not hesitate punish any Muslim state in the region if it ever posed a threat to Israel.
Granted, the primary responsibility of any leader is to see that his or her country's interest is upheld at all times. But that cannot be bereft of moral convictions and civility -- otherwise we will have to suffer from the primordial instincts of man.
One would hope that the new US administration would bring in a degree of honesty in its foreign policy, that it would ensure that subterfuge and lies are not resorted to in influencing public opinion, that it would distance itself from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The former is seen as an instrument that has been used to desecrate a religion by subjecting the inmates to the most undignified forms of treatment, and the latter stands out flagrantly as an anti-human rights symbol.
One hopes that the new administration would not stereotype the Muslims and paint them with the broad brush as "Islamofascists." One hopes, too, that the new US administration would realise the limits of its power and that there is more dividend in pursuing a multi-lateral policy than going it alone; that the new administration would take to heart what Bill Clinton had said recently, that America should lead the world by the power of its example rather than the example of its power.
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