Barrack Obama: The Audacity of Shame?
When Barrack Obama wrote the book “The Audacity of Hope” shortly after his inauguration to the Presidency for his first term, he was largely reechoing widely held sentiments all over the world. He was expressing the innermost thoughts of the teeming number of media audiences the world over that had become weary of a Superpower that obviously seems to define its global role as that of a taskmaster and a law enforcement overseer.
To defeat Hillary Clinton for his party’s nomination, Obama’s rhetoric made Hillary Clinton look and sound like an integral part of the old establishment in Washington that needed to be “changed”. Worse still, John McCain’s trigger-happy posture and his unflinching lust for the assertion of America’s supremacy over the rest of the world made him far worse than Hillary Clinton and simply unelectable to an America that was licking its wounds from George Bushes Iraq misadventure. Obama swore to change or even revolutionize the way things are done in Washington and inspired hope for those who never thought they would live to see a pacifist America in their lifetime. This culminated in the hasty and strongly criticized decision of the Nobel Peace Committee in Oslo to award him the coveted prize even though he was yet to show any public credential of peace achieved. The world was simply ready to accept the benefit of the doubt since hope in itself was a potent groundwork and a sound psychological achievement for the realization of the ultimate goal.
Since 2008, the world has come a long way with Barrack Obama as the first Afro-root American President. A lot has happened and hardly anyone has seen his hope and dreams fulfilled amid the massive investment of goodwill in a project of a lifetime.
Things began to go wrong when ultra-conservative elements within the USA launched the Tea Party movement in a campaign to discredit Obama’s credentials and his fundamental identity. Rather than fighting back with a similar grassroots movement to redefine what America should basically stand for, Barrack Obama chose the path of uniting the nation. He shied away from the option of taking the fiend head-on believing more in the good-guy image of being everybody’s darling. In the end, the ultra-conservative movement made strong headways in mobilizing public opinion against a lot of social justice principles forming the cornerstone of the Obama doctrine. Today his trademark healthcare reforms are still standing on shaky grounds pending the ascension to power of a conservative government.
The President chose the way of appeasement and sought to converge with his political opponents on a middle ground. The opponent accepted all overtures without ceding any bit of its own position. Guantanamo bay remains operational even as we speak.
Barrack Obama slowly began to look like Michael Dukakis – an erstwhile democratic presidential candidate – who allowed his opponent to dictate the pace and themes of his electoral campaign. Mike Dukakis was labeled a “Liberal” and an incompetent advocate of America’s strength and global dominance. Rather than forcing the proper definition of the term “Liberal” and stressing the need for a more compassionate than bravado America, which formed the core of his political program, Dukakis played into the hands of his opponents seeking to present himself as a strong and worthy representative of America’s strength. In the end, his margin shrunk in the polls and he ended up losing the race to George Bush senior.
Unfortunately Barrack Obama seems to have learnt very little from such precedents. Without taking much cognizance of his empty-handed disposition in return for all the concessions he has made towards his opponent, President Obama does very little to fight for, define and establish his beliefs and principles as a compelling element of political thinking.
Today, John McCain contributes in no small way to the shaping of America’s foreign policy by brandishing the sword and showing pacifism as a weaklings stock in trade. Syria has been the most prominent case study in this terrain.
Forgetting the popular wave, on whose back he rode to electoral victory, the Obama’s administration – at the very least – condoned the encouragement of the uprising in Syria with the ultimate goal of isolating Iran and establishing an America-friendly Syria at Iran’s doorstep as a possible and comfortable launching pad. We remember the activities of the American Ambassador to Syria in the early days of the uprising, who traveled severally to the protesters to counsel them on better organization rather than mediation. In the end, he had to be removed from Damascus in the aftermath of serious death threats. Today, a lot of evidences make the round in the media suggesting western influences in starting the uprising in the first place. Funnily even though many western media houses still report today that the protests that launched the uprising started peacefully and that the attempt by the Assad regime to crush the protest violently led to the civil war, many observers remember that a few gunmen mixed up with the protesters and often shot and killed policemen to provoke more high-handed reactions. This same scenario played out recently in the Muslim Brotherhood protests in Egypt and the world now knows the method as a way of provoking escalation to gain the sympathy of international public opinion.
Since no one had sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the method did not work out in favor of those that ended up being slaughtered by the Egyptian soldiers. In a typical western media propaganda style that the world has now become accustomed to through two Iraq wars, Libya infiltration etc., collaborative headlines in the west reported Assad forces killing “its own people” who were only demonstrating peacefully. Gunmen among the protesters that were reportedly armed by Turkey would be reported only by alternative, low-circulation marginal news organs while the bigger media houses fanned the embers of public sentiments to demonize the Assad regime, for whom no one would love to hold brief.
Indeed, the conclusion of the Syrian transition was expected to be brief and short-lived. Many had counted the days of Bashir Al-Assad as President of Syria and that was two years ago.
The irony of all these is that the entire development is happening under the watch and collaboration of a pacifist Obama’s Presidency who came to power vowing to stop America’s rampaging bravado politics in the international community. Rather than standing firm, defining and launching a massive and passionate plea for the adoption of his doctrine of pacifism and thus alienating his militant opponents into political oblivion, Barrack Obama got trapped in a policy of seeking to prove to his opponents that he too can be tough. Rather than having a defenseless Osama Bin Laden arrested for instance, Obama came out proud and boasting with the political capital of killing Bin Laden. The need to isolate Iran and dissuade it from pushing ahead with its nuclear program has so far, forced Obama to betray his pacifist agenda on Syria rather than fighting for a properly configured long-term agenda for America’s global future.
Today, the moderate elements with whom the west sympathized (at the minimum) in the Syrian uprising have now been outnumbered, outgunned and overwhelmed by radical, blood-thirsty and cannibalistic Islamic fundamentalists, who have hijacked the supposed Syrian revolution. The prospect of an Islamic State replacing Bashir Al-Assad’s less religion-leaning administration has now left the west in a jittery position.
With the moderate elements, with whom the western dreams of overthrowing Bashir Al-Assad started, now feeling betrayed, the west is now feeling even more agitated in its lost cause.
In all of these, Barrack Obama has simply not found the courage to privately admit to American allies, the blunders made and roll back the tirade and find ways of putting a temporary end to the carnage by prevailing on Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar to simply accept that political projects may sometimes also end up in failure. Instead, the Russians and Chinese are being demonized for standing on the side of solid international jurisprudence. In its dilemma of wanting to look strong and please his conservative opponents, Barrack Obama locked himself in a chemical weapon trap that will now see him finally calling the bluff and dropping down low to the status of George W. Bush to bomb another country that has done absolutely nothing to violate America’s interest. What a grandstanding by a Nobel Peace laureate.
The underlying principle of victory at all costs to avoid losing face and prestige now seems to be driving the geopolitical balance of power to another level with Russia slowly and steadily regaining its relevance while its economic power will yet hinder confrontational military adventurism. Iran may be poised to save face and prestige by standing up with moderately sophisticated weaponry, against the powers that be and in support of Syria by ultimately forcing a stand-off with Israel. The result may be a scorched earth with unpredictable regional consequences.
All through his years as President so far, Barrack Obama is clearly posing as personifying the betrayal of ideals. While black Africans may forgive him for putting Africa in the back seat of active policy considerations, hardly anyone of his erstwhile fans will forgive him for failing to live up to expectations in implementing pacifism.
How art the mighty fallen! The Audacity of Hope now transformed into the Audacity of Shame?
Frisky Larr 