"The
closing of Guantanamo, the pacification of Iraq and the revival of the peace
process aimed at creating a Palestinian state are some of the failures of an
administration that has obviously overestimated its power. … In the end,
Obama's change was only a dream. A genuine American dream!"
Today, January 20th, President
Barack Obama completes his first year at the helm of the world's leading power.
A year ago, hundreds of thousands of admirers massed in front of Capitol Hill
and millions of around the world had their eyes glued to the small screen, unrestrainedly
drinking in the great rhetoric of this modern-day Martin Luther King. A Black
man in the White House, finally! But beyond that, a president of the United
States so nice that he managed to get everyone on their feet. Suddenly the hope
for a better world, even under the U.S. stars and stripes, was reborn. The
dream of a new fairer and more humane America was taking shape. The osmosis was
almost complete between President Obama and citizens around the world, as his
style and speech contrasted radically from those of cowboy George Bush, a man
who was ready to draw his gun at the slightest rustle.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
We sincerely believed that
the time for change had finally arrived in Washington, as Obama himself said on
the evening of his victory in Chicago. But a year later, we must admit that Mr.
Obama's record is quite meager, despite his less arrogant way of speaking and his
rather reassuring intentions compared to his predecessor. The closing of
Guantanamo, the pacification of Iraq and the revival of the peace process aimed
at creating a Palestinian state are some of the failures of an administration that
has obviously overestimated its power.
President
Obama discusses his first year in office with ABCNews
Clearly, Barack Obama has to
face the fact that being in charge at the White House hasn't ipso-facto given
him the power to impose himself as master of Washington. The chain of command in
the United States is so complicated and complex that decisions - particularly
in the realm of foreign policy - are almost completely out of the hands of the Oval
Office. The sincere desire of a president to do good and the interests of
powerful lobbies, notably the military-industrial complex, often collide head
on. Diplomatic mistakes and excesses of war have often been a result of these internal
contradictions within the U.S. establishment.
It's an establishment torn
between wanting to play a theoretical role as paragon of virtue in the eyes of
the world and defending the material interests of the forces surrounding and gravitating
toward the White House and the Senate, by which Obama and his predecessors have
obtained the keys to the Oval Office.
Indeed, we've seen how Barack Obama
chickened out when confronted by the stubbornness of Israel not to stop settlement
activity on the West Bank. His cautionary speech in Cairo in which he decried
the “unlawful” continuation of colonization was quickly transformed into a love
poem for Israel. Obama has understood that after the outcry in the U.S. and the
terse response of the Netanyahu cabinet, he shouldn’t impose on or refuse
anything to Israel, the unfailing protection of which is a fundamental duty of
American foreign policy. It was a rude awakening for President Obama, who has
since learned to make this dogmatic premise a central plank of his diplomacy.
It was a lesson well learned,
and Obama was rewarded - at dusk after taking almost a year's sabbatical - with a Nobel Peace
Prize … for abandoning the peace process! Even worse, he gave the green light
to his generals to send additional troops to Afghanistan just days after
receiving the precious Nobel Academy diploma. The moral: In the United States,
he who accepts the rules and follows them can receive all the honors of a man of
peace - even as a president of war. In the end, Obama's change was
only a dream. A genuine American dream!
