US President Barack Obama’s success in his re-election bid by a narrow margin gives him four more years in an American environment that is challenging by any standards. Just before he took over as the first black President in his country’s history, he faced the biggest recession that hit his homeland since the Great Depression of the 1930s. He surmounted that by the skin of his teeth over his Republican opponents by sponsoring a massive stimulus package.
But the challenges are greater this time around because Americans are more polarised than they have been since the country’s civil war. President Obama has not merely antagonised the right by his landmark healthcare reform measure, derided by his opponents as “Obamacare” the first such reform in 75 years — but has gone against an abiding American belief in government being evil stemming from how the early settlers colonised the country by largely eliminating American Indians.
Indeed, American society has never been as polarised as it is today, with the right wing epitomised by the Tea Party phenomenon gaining strength, in addition to the usual suspects, the gun lobby and the evangelical right. His Republican opponent Mitt Romney, who suddenly gained strength after the singularly lacklustre performance of Mr Obama in the first of the three presidential debates, was able to enthuse right-wing Republicans who were deeply sceptical of his credentials.
It is, of course, true that for all his achievements, including the risky directive to get Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout, Mr Obama’s four years are a litany of broken promises. He dramatically announced the closure of the notorious Guantanamo prison complex in a year and made a clarion call to the Muslim world from Cairo and promised to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Guantanamo is still very much in existence and the Palestinian plight in overthrowing Israeli colonial rule has never been more desperate, with more and more Palestinian land being colonised with little more than hand-wringing from the Obama administration.
On Guantanamo, he met stout Republican opposition in Congress, and on Israel he was up against the insurmountable Jewish lobby’s hold on the American political system, which has supported and helped the Israeli state in every way since the British departed from the region. It is an indication of Tel Aviv’s ability to influence US policy in the Middle East, as the world calls it, that going against Israel’s interests, whatever the cost to Washington, is a sure road to calumny and oblivion for any American leader.
President Obama also has had a problem with his own make-up, brilliantly packaged by former President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail as “a man cool on the outside whose heart burns for America”, as a somewhat aloof person without the common touch to empathise with the people. In the words of a black politician, he gives a college tutorial when he should be wooing his opponents to strike a deal. He has, of course, great reserves of intellectual power to sway audiences from a podium.
The American myth of government being evil carries its own contradictions, as was clear during the unprecedented “superstorm” that hit the American east coast, with the federally funded aid immediately being energised by the White House to the praise of New Jersey’s Republican governor in a region hardest hit by nature’s fury. Mr Romney would rather have the states take care of such tragedies, and he had vowed to reverse “Obamacare”, if elected.
President Obama’s first task, therefore, will be to make the political system, broken down in many respects, work. The Republicans are in a defiant and obstructive mood even as the country has swung more to the right in the intervening four years. The killing of Bin Laden in a Navy Seal operation saved Mr Obama from the charge, frequently hurled by Republicans against Democrats, that the latter are weak on defence. Indeed, Mr Romney had proposed an enhancement of the world’s biggest such budget by a hefty sum to keep the country safe and intervene abroad when necessary.
President Obama realised to his cost that he cannot fight what President Eisenhower once described as the “military-industrial complex”. In some respects, he became a diligent pupil in the unprecedented scope he gave to the killing of militants in Pakistan, Yemen and other lands through armed military drones. If he was inexperienced in how the American system works in the highest echelons, he learned the ropes quickly enough.
It is equally true that Americans are tired of fighting wars, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, and American help in the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was described as “leading from behind” by placing the European powers in front in the Nato air war camouflaging key US inputs. The Iraq war, perhaps the greatest mistake of the George W. Bush presidency, was wound down and a timeline was set at 2014 for withdrawal from Afghanistan. In addition, President Obama has been seeking to temper PM Netanyahu’s belligerence on Iran.
President Obama’s priority must, however, be to make the Congressional system work. There are many anomalies in the US electoral system for instance, Electoral College votes based on state quotas trumping the popular vote and the ruling party President’s right to appoint justices of the Supreme Court is flawed. Again, for historical reasons, the right to carry arms is viewed as inalienable. While these and other drawbacka will take long to rectify, Obama must seek ways to reach out to the Opposition.
Despite these contradictions, America remains a country of great resilience. It has unsurpassed talent, genius and cutting-edge technology which has placed it ahead of the world. All it needs is a new resolve to move away from strange ideologies and beliefs that seem to thrive in the free American air to the detriment of logic and common sense.