Obama’s second chance to re-write history

Aliyu Musa

President Barack Obama’s re-endorsement by the American electorate to run the affairs of the most powerful country in the world for another four years is a victory for all progressives. The world is in such a critical state of fragility that it certainly does not need any more wars. And having the Democrats back in the White House comes with some measure of guarantee.

In his first term as the US president Obama had the goodwill of a mighty majority of voters and sympathisers all over the world. One of the reasons he enjoyed such a massive support, especially from those of us with no voting right in the election, was because the preceding eight years of the Republicans could best be remembered by two big wars and a devastating global depression. The war in Iraq, in particular, was senseless, needless and embarrassingly counter-productive. So, we all wanted a change of guard and the Americans concurred by voting wisely even though they made a break from tradition.

Although many would want to score President Obama low, especially in terms of keeping his pre and post election promises to ensure a just and friendlier America, his domestic performance was not so abysmal. In fact, his handling of the economy has been adjudged highly impressive.

One of the key promises was to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison, which has since been truncated partly by a staunchly opposed Congress and, to a degree, by the president’s failure to muster enough political will to do it. The US claim to safeguarding justice and fairness would be taken more seriously if there was no Guantanamo Bay in the first place. But if President Obama had acted by closing it down and either had appropriately prosecuted those indicted or released the innocent, he would have inspired some confidence.

Another issue many of us thought a moderate presidency like his would do was to resolve (or work towards it) many of the crises that are either directly or indirectly linked to the US across the world. One of these is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Former President Bill Clinton, also a Democrat, came very close to achieving it when he brought leaders of the two sides to a meeting in Oslo, Norway in 1993 to agree to a way forward.

America is Israel’s strongest ally. The US is also hugely influential among Arab leaders – in spite of the Arab Spring that swept power off the feet of some of the leaders. Among issues that have continued to thwart the resolution of the conflict are the failure to agree on two states solution and recognition of the state of Israel. Both of these are fundamental to the conflict.

While the Arabs must accept and recognise the existence of the state of Israel, the government and people of Israel must allow the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The two countries would then live side-by-side. America’s position, therefore, makes it the most likely country to broker this peace and ensure a lasting solution to this and many other problems often tied to this and many others in the Middle East.

Although President Obama made history by extending a hand of friendship to the Muslim world, the excitement that welcomed it has since evaporated. Many examples are there to remind optimists to moderate their expectations: the endless drones in operation in Muslim countries that often miss their targets to hit civilians; the baseless support for the involvement of NATO forces in the conflict in Libya; the failure to act with the same urgency in Syria; and the less enthusiastic efforts by the world’s only superpower, arguably, to resolve many other conflicts as well as humanitarian crises directly arising from such conflicts etc would, painfully, keep reminding us to expect deflated hopes.

But now that President Obama has another mandate, he could rewrite history by reinvigorating this confidence. Many of us who stayed up the entire night of the 2008 election did not bother this time because we thought whether he won or not it would not bring about any change. We thought the Democrats and Republicans were two sides of a coin, even though deep down we would rather hang out with the Democrats.

However, the next fours years and enough time for Obama to re-inscribe his profile in gold – already his effort to tackle the economy has yielded impressive results. So, let him replicate that success story at the international scene by leading the way to ensuring global peace and harmony.

Postscript:

This article appears in the Blueprint newspaper of 09/11/2012