PASSING ON THE TORCH

(ARTICLE FOR PUBLICATION ON 9^TH NOVEMBER 2008)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

On 4^th November Barak Obama created history. He was elected the 44^th President of the USA, the first from the minority community in the entire US history. His election reflected a generational divide, passing of an old order, and flexibility of the US society to embrace what was once thought impossible, a signal that the African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, native Americans, and most importantly the youth together can change Martin Luther King’s dream into a reality. His election would change the tectonic shift in the US foreign and defense policies that Madeline Albright had spoken of that had taken place in the change of guards from Bill Clinton’s administration to the one of George W Bush. Indeed Bush’s total reliance on hard power encouraged by the neo-cons who were raised to positions of power along with him advocating  total disregard of   the rest of the international community and subordination of international law to US domestic law disappointed the allies and the rest of the world. Initially the average Americans, more interested in their wallets than the genocide in Darfur, gave Bush Presidency a long rope in the conduct of governmental business, both at home and abroad. Their support became a national and patriotic cry with 9/11  attack on  the Twin Towers and the Pentagon by sub-state actors in the name of a distorted version of the terrorists’ own  interpretation of a great religion that had  a long history of struggle with Christianity for spiritual and temporal expansion. The Americans were aghast at the audacity of these half clad nomads headquartered in Afghanistan, a place they had never heard of. So when President Bush sent his men and arms to reduce the country to rubbles the Americans, and indeed the entire world, clapped in approval. But when Bush miscalculated by invading Iraq in the face of the opposition of the great part of humanity in the wrong belief that Iraq was the front line of al-Qaeda, the terrorists, and that the loathed dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction itching to attack the Western world the pliant US Congress agreed to give him the authority to invade. Bush had thought, again proved wrongly, that the American soldiers would be welcomed as liberators like in the Second World War. Saddam and his cohorts were hanged yet Iraqis continued to feel occupied and the US Treasury continued to pour in $ 10 billion dollars a month to maintain the US army and the “ungrateful” Iraqis are now insisting that the US give them a firm time line of the army’s departure from their country. Though the  eight years of long wintry night has come to an end with the exit of the  failed President in the US history evidenced by his low rating of public approval and the  pointed dissociation of his own party’s Presidential nominee from the policies  followed by Bush, the questions staring at the face of  Barak Obama, the President-elect, are many and would be difficult to solve in his four year term. The most urgent task would be to fix the economy, the largest yet the most indebted developed economy in the world, to bring back consumers’ confidence, to bring the banking system back on the rails, to stop Americans from being thrown out of their homes ,to keep his election promise of  tax cut to Americans earning not more than $250000 a year and go for progressive taxation to finance education and health projects,  to reduce outsourcing  of jobs overseas,  to start giving loans to medium and small business, to promote fuel efficient auto industry, to create jobs, to reduce dependency on Middle East oil, to assure the Americans that homeland security is bullet proof and above all to reassure the world that the US shall remain the leader of the world.  Barak Obama is a breath of fresh air after the failure of Bush Presidency. Mathew Iglesias (The Atlantic-June 2008) wrote “Obama has always been an independent thinker… he has built a team of national security advisors who disproportionately took the same, then unpopular antiwar view”. He brought around his table former National Security Advisor Tony Lake, former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, Denis McDonough of the Center for American Progress,  former Air Force General Jonathan Gration, Sarah Sewall of Harvard University, Africa expert Susan Rice, Professor Austan Goolsbee etc. Obama’s opposition to Iraq war produced, wrote Iglesias, a meaningful new approach to foreign policy and the first substantial alternative to Bush policy that had entered the political mainstream since 9/11. Obama articulated his views of RENEWING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP he wrote in Foreign affairs (July/August 2007) on how Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy “managed to protect the American people and expand opportunities for the next generation”. Obama wrote that once again the US has been “called to provide visionary leadership” as this century’s threats can kill on a massive scale by non-state actors who “respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism”. He criticized Bush for responding “to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past.” Obama has called for retrieval of the fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy that the security and wellbeing of each and every American depends on the security and well being of those who live beyond the borders of the USA. Advocating multilateralism, sadly abandoned by the Bush administration, Obama feels that “we can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world by deed and by example”.

 Iraq war must be brought to a responsible end because Iraq is not and never was the main front of the war on terror. He called for more focus be given to Afghanistan (according to Obama advisor Dr. Susan Rice al-Qaeda is now believed to have extended its reach to sixty countries worldwide). Regarding Pakistan Obama advocates a policy that “compels Pakistani action against terrorists who threaten our common security and are using the FATA and   Northwest territories of Pakistan as a safe haven” and warns that if actionable intelligence of high value terrorist targets are available then the US would take unilateral action across the border into Pakistan. But continuing US missile attacks inside Pakistani territory forced a consensus resolution passed by Pakistan parliament in October that, among other things, clearly stated that US drone attacks would no longer be tolerated. US State Department replied that US was ready to work out the problem with Pakistan. On India Obama declares that he would build a close strategic partnership because the two countries have both experienced major terrorist attacks and “have a shared interest in succeeding in the fight against al-Qaeda and its operational and ideological affiliates”. Obama voted to approve US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement in October 2008 and praised in September 2008 the Nuclear Suppliers Group for deciding to allow members to cooperate with India on nuclear issues. But then again as Professor Stephen Zunes points out that while Obama has indicated a willingness to take international law and the UN more seriously than Bush administration, he still appears to accept the same double standard regarding to whom such international standard shall apply. Climate change will certainly attract attention of Barak Obama as he wrote in his Foreign Affairs article: “By 2050 famine could displace 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world”. While these are early days for a tour d!horizon of Barak Obama’s foreign policy objectives the world can certainly heave a sigh of relief the past eight years of global   anxiety may be over.   

 CONSPIRACY THEORY AND INTER-FAITH DIALOGUE