Message of Change from President Obama

Published in The Daily Star, November 8, 2008

THE US voters rose above racial prejudice and voted to the White House as their 44th President a black man and thus made history. A country where slavery was once institutionalised and legalized, where even as late as in the 1960s blacks were still fighting for their civil and human rights, has now changed forever. Martin Luther King's dream that there will be a day when people will be judged not by the colour of their skins but by the content of their character is now a reality.

Senator Barak Obama won a landslide victory with 364 electoral votes and 53% popular votes on his promise of change. The voters of US, particularly the youth, came together to let their country breathe fresh air again. The world has also been freed of the suffocation suffered under President Bush as his neo-con advisers sought to re-write international law by inventing the concept of pre-emptive strike, which gave them the right to attack any country that they thought is a threat to the United States. They attacked Afghanistan and Iraq under that concept after the events of 9/11. Threats of attack were held out against North Korea and Iran assuming these two nations to be parts of the “axis of evil”. They turned the world upside down for the worse.

There was spontaneous support internationally for President Bush's war on terror in pursuance of which the US invaded Afghanistan. The world heaved a sigh of relief when the Taliban fell. Thereafter, Bush's neo-con advisers went to Iraq on totally false premises leaving the work in Afghanistan half-done to complete the unfinished objectives of elder President Bush; that of removing Saddam, occupying Iraq and getting control over the country's oil. With the Iraq diversion and the manner of it, the US lost its image and support worldwide. It divided the US internally and the world externally following the lines drawn by President Bush himself that “you are either with us or against us”. The world went against the US and her worldwide image received its worst battering ever.

Thousands of lives of US soldiers have been lost; many times more innocent people have been killed as a result of the actions of the US. Hundreds of billions of US dollars have been pumped to Iraq and Afghanistan that pushed the US economy to its worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, such that even a US 700 billion dollar bailout package may not help overcome. The meltdown of the US economy has threatened to take the rest of the world down the same path. President-elect Obama thus will be inheriting an office that will challenge him like that office has not challenged anyone in history. The new President must not only lead his country; he must also set the directions for the rest of the world both politically and economically. In bringing the promised change in his country, President Obama must also think of the rest of the world for the fate of the two is inextricably linked.

President-elect Obama's package of economic reforms won the voters' approval overwhelmingly. These reforms will now no doubt develop into a movement for US' benefit under his dynamic leadership. His foreign policy priorities, however, would require re- evaluation to bring the change the rest of the world, who welcomed his victory with the same enthusiasm as people in the US, is expecting. His administration must change direction to lead the world not by bullying but by earning respect and support that most nations gave the US after 9/11 in her demand that those responsible for the acts should be punished.

President-elect Obama will thus have his hands full in dealing with foreign policy that should receive his administration's attention as much as domestic issues for the sake of the US and the world. Senator Biden no doubt will bring all his experience to assist him in the area of foreign affairs. During his campaign, Senator Obama has identified Afghanistan as the new frontier where the war on terror would be fought. On a trip to Israel, he promised the Israelis more than they have received from any US leader, giving to them the whole of Jerusalem. On South Asia, he thought the real problem is not between India and Pakistan but between Pakistan and Afghanistan. These stances indicate that Senator Obama would have to rethink his priorities if he wants USA to become the respectable leader of a problem ridden world that his predecessors could have easily achieved but lost on a totally unrealistic view of the world; that the rest of the world had no choice but to accept the US as the leader.

The world was expected to become peaceful, where wars and conflicts were supposed to become history after the Soviet Union fell. That did not happen and trouble spots sprouted like bamboo shoots on all the continents. The one in Middle East, involving the Israelis and the Palestinians became the most dangerous. It became the root for growth of Islamic extremism by groups who used Islam to fight injustice to Palestinians who have been made refugees in their own homeland. President Bush's inadvertent slip about the crusade on TV when informed about the 9/11 incidents helped drive Islam and the western world on a dangerous clash course of civilizations where, if justice had been done in Palestine, there would not have even been cause for what eventually happened. Let it not be lost to the new President that it had taken General Colin Powell as Secretary of State eight months to make his first visit to the region under the Bush administration.

President-elect Obama thus needs to review his policy on Palestine for this is the key to bringing the Islamic and the western world into partnership. In fact, a just and successful resolution of this issue may not need the US to fight the war on terror for then this war can still be resolved without military action. He must bring the occupation of Iraq to an end early in his Presidency and open dialogue with Iran instead of taking the neo-con stance and dealing with it as “an axis of evil”. If a nuclear power like India is provided civil nuclear technology under an agreement with the US that Senator Obama backs, then the case of Iran for civil nuclear technology must also be dealt with diplomatically and not by threat of war.

In Afghanistan, the Bush administration has messed up everything. The Taliban is resurgent there again threatening the elected and US backed government of Hamid Karzai. Recently the British and Russian Ambassadors in Kabul and also experts on Afghanistan have suggested that it may not be a bad policy to talk with the Taliban and insurgents for the military option there is a doomed one. President-elect Obama must review the US policy in Afghanistan and look at the diplomatic and political options as against the military. Also, his assessment during the campaign that the problem in South Asia is between Pakistan and Afghanistan and not between Pakistan and India would also need to be re-assessed for the problem between the latter two is much deeper. The signing of the civil nuclear deal between the US and India has elevated the latter to a pre-eminent position that could ruffle the delicate balance of power in the region. President-elect Obama should ensure that India uses this newfound prestige for positive ends so that the long-standing problems that the nations of South Asia have with her are resolved amicably and justly.

Bangladesh's major interest in the Obama presidency will be in trade. By tradition, Democrats are pro-labour where interests of the US workers come first. Bangladesh's RMG sector, upon which its national economy is heavily dependent, would face difficulties under the Obama presidency for two reasons. First, till the new President is able to lift the country out of her economic miseries, consumption in USA would continue to suffer and hence the need to import RMG would be significantly reduced, in turn affecting Bangladesh adversely. Second, the new administration would also put trade agreements of the past under serious scrutiny and introduce tougher standards from which Bangladesh's RMG exports could suffer adversely. During the presidential campaign and earlier, McCain's position on free trade was more favourable to a country like Bangladesh than the one taken by President-elect Obama. One avenue for continued and increased access of Bangladesh's RMG could be made by pleading on its LDC status for which the need for effective lobbying would be of the essence.

President-elect Obama has been chosen by destiny to create the United States of Martin Luther King's dream. He has the vision, the charisma and the brilliance to do it. The world, however, has changed a great deal since the dream, and the fate of the US is now inextricably linked across national frontiers. President-elect Obama must thus not lead his country only; the world is also looking towards his leadership. Those two hundred thousand people who cheered him in Berlin as a presidential candidate represent the hope that people outside USA places on an US President. Professor Huntington's prediction of a clash of civilizations was taken up by neo-cons to destroy Islam that in turn has brought so much conflict, death and misery. Senator Obama can change this prediction and establish a fusion of civilizations for, on the basics, Islam has no fight with Judaism and Christianity because all three are religions that have evolved from the same source.

The people of the United States deserve to be congratulated for ending their long winter of discontent suffered under a White House in the hands of the neo-cons and letting sunshine back in by their historic effort to elect Senator Barak Obama as their President. Let President-elect Obama give a part of that sunshine to the rest of the world to enjoy for US' long winter of discontent has also been theirs.

The author is a former Ambassador to Japan. His email address is serajul@cfasonline.org