Plain Words
Obama is still news
THE world continues to expect a great deal from Barack Hussein Obama, the president-elect of America. His popularity abroad translates into unreasonably high hopes of Obama setting the world right. Others want various things and think he would be more reasonable.
A fact to note is: Americans have elected him as their president, and his first task is to satisfy his voters. True, a statesman will do as his voters want him to, without hurting others. Whether Obama will have the wisdom of a statesman remains to be seen. The test will be how he defines America's interests. Bush thought he was acting in America's best interests.
Obama's back room boys have already given some jolts to unthinking Obama admirers. He has also to satisfy relentless lobbies in America. In which condition Obama inherits America should be considered before asking him to do this or that. America is in an economic and financial crisis.
The current recession threatens to grow into depression. Unemployment level is uncomfortably high. This means smaller profits for corporate America. No American president can be unmindful of these profits.
Americans lack many social services that West Europeans enjoy in their welfare states. America veered away from the Europeans when they started building their welfare states after 1945, when America had emerged as a superpower.
The opportunities of being a superpower had much to do with the American decision to remain a laissez faire economy rather than become a welfare state.
As it happens, one-third of Americans have no health cover. Quality of education for poorer sections is unsatisfactory. A lot more money is required to improve only these two services, which successive American governments could not spare while corporations became mega rich. Obama promises to begin a march on the expensive road to providing quality healthcare and better education for all; more jobs and more profits for Corporate America too will cost a fortune, to be funded from taxes on the rich.
His first priority is sure to be this heavy domestic agenda. Never forget, America will always remain one of bigger powers even if it does not remain the only hyper power. Inevitably it will have large interests abroad. Obama will be asked to preserve them. These include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the Afghan war has spilled into Pakistan. While he cleans up the mess George W. Bush will leave behind, various lobbies will distract him no end.
He will be pressurised to intone "continuity and safety." But these wars are un-winnable. The over 60 years-old problem of Arab-Israeli dispute is still festering. How will he tackle it? Various administrations have faced a persistent dilemma: So long as America, for civilisational and historical reasons, goes on identifying itself with Israel and its security interests, there will be no solution.
Given this, the Arab masses cannot but be alienated from America, which has a lot of economic, particularly oil, interests all over the Arabian Peninsula.
Alienating the Arabs means an intermittent quasi-war between Israel and Arabs in which Iran has come to occupy a place. America has to woo Iran for help in pacifying and stabilising Iraq, and keeping away from a fight with Israel. Will the US change its objectives and methods?
Iran has been trying to win over the friendship, and indeed the leadership, of Arab masses. American interests would thus seem to be gravely endangered while current US exigencies require Iranian cooperation. How will Obama resolve the dilemma over the Arab-Israeli relations and how will he tackle Iran?
An unspoken fear grips American and pro-American governments in the Arabian Peninsula because the Arab masses are alienated from their rulers who survive because of US protection. They have plundered their states and kept their wealth in America. Common Arabs benefit little from their own oil.
Since Iran has overthrown American hegemony and is actively opposing American power, it is no longer a negligible factor. It is the second biggest exporter of Gulf oil. It is now rich.
Domestic criticisms of Iranian governments notwithstanding, outsiders have to note that the Iranian military is being constantly modernised and is no longer a pushover. True, Israel is more powerful than Iran, and more so for possessing the only nuclear arsenal in the region. But Iran has missiles and is making some progress in acquiring other war technologies.
A war against Iran, whether by America or Israel, would cause unacceptable losses to the entire West. Even so, Israel insists on an aerial strike on its nuclear enrichment program. Why? Because the West fears Iran will ultimately fabricate nuclear weapons. Hence, a preemptive war.
But aerial bombardment of its nuclear sites, a la Osirak strike in early 1980s, may be difficult or ineffective. In the 1980s the Israelis had studied the geography, topography and geology of the area and the required military tactics with the Pentagon for six long months. That is not repeatable.
The Iranians are reasonably more efficient than the Iraqis were in 1980 in preventing Israeli or western spooks from doing such mischief. How will Obama assess the losses and gains from the war? It looks hard to compute. One way or another, that war will have to be fought on the ground; the effects of an aerial attack, no matter how meticulously planned, are likely to be slight or transitory.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of war against Islamic extremists is growing, not contracting. Iraq-like surges are not likely to succeed in stamping out Taliban and other Islamic extremists. It is becoming a clash of religions because, whether or not the Americans are motivated by religious motives -- perhaps not -- the Taliban, their supporters and the region firmly believe that this is a war against Islamic fundamentalists and, as such, a war against Islam because, without this fundamentalism, Islam is not a cognisable factor.
Pakistan is a highly explosive material. Its army has already been, more or less, defeated by the local Taliban. And local Taliban are now calling their Afghan namesakes for help against new offensives by the Pakistan army,and the war is escalating.
Doubtless, Pakistan is the epicentre of Islamic extremism. A lot of theoretical work has gone on here in radicalising Islam by promoting fundamentalism and extremism (including by the state itself).
Talibanisation of Pakistan is not a fantasy, though there are regions such as Balochistan and Sindh that might not become Talibanised, Punjab and NWFP can. Talibanisation involves a massacre of minorities, oppression of women, and taking society backward by centuries. What might happen is mind-boggling. Whatever happens to Pakistan will have far reaching consequences for India and Bangladesh, and perhaps beyond. Islamic fundamentalism would get promoted no end.
South Asia is not the only worry of Americans. America and Russia, for most practical purposes, have already squared off into a cold war rivalry. America received a setback in August when Russia invaded Georgia and the EU and America looked on helplessly.
The EU is now divided on the question of dealing with Russia. Americans want the Europeans to reduce their dependence on Russian energy supplies. But that is easier said than done. No European is convinced that Russia poses any real or lasting threat to the security of western Europe. How much time and what wisdom Obama can spare for external matters is not certain.
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