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Monday, July 7, 2008
Candidate
Obama: A Less Risky Alternative
"All you have to do is to tell them
[the
people] they are being attacked, and denounce
the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country."
Hermann Goering, Germany's Nazi leader
"Essential to this strategy is the UN Security
Council, which should impose progressively tougher political and economic
sanctions [on Iran]. Should the Security Council continue to delay in this
responsibility, the United States must lead like-minded countries in imposing
multilateral sanctions outside the UN framework."
Sen. John McCain,
June 2, 2008, before the annual AIPAC Conference, Washington D.C.
“The Iranian threat must be stopped by all
possible means, and [it
was a global duty to take] drastic measures' to prevent it.”
Ehud Olmert, Israeli Prime Minister, June 4, 2008,
before the annual AIPAC Conference, Washington D.C.
“I
have proposed a responsible, phased redeployment of our troops from Iraq. We
will get out as carefully as we were careless getting in.”
...[The] “danger from Iran is grave,
[and I would] do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon - everything.”
Sen. Barack Obama, June 4, 2008, before the annual
AIPAC Conference, Washington D.C.
“...I know that when I visit with AIPAC, I am
among friends. Good friends. Friends who share my strong commitment to make
sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today,
tomorrow, and forever.”
Sen. Barack Obama, June 4, 2008, before the annual
AIPAC Conference, Washington D.C.
A few weeks ago, I analyzed the
relative worthiness of the candidacy of presumptive Republican Candidate McCain.
In all fairness, a similar assessment of Senator Barack Obama's candidacy would
appear necessary.
Indeed, the Bush-Cheney
administration will be history at 11:59 pm on January 20, 2009. On November 4,
2008, their successors, a new president and a new vice president, will have
been chosen. Will it be an Obama team or a McCain team?
Sen. Barack Obama (D. IL) is the
presumptive Democratic presidential candidate and the U.S.'s first
African-American presidential nominee from a major party. Considering the
racial past of the United States, if he were to be elected President, this will
have to be considered close to being a political revolution. The political climate
for such an important shift in American politics is, as of now, most favorable
to electing a Democrat as President.
For one, the current Republican administration, after
eight years of blunder upon blunder, is the most unpopular of any
administration in a long time, with a massive 65 percent disapproval rating,
according to a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll,
while President George W. Bush is in the political cellar with a 28
percent approval rating. Even more revealing perhaps, very few Americans say
their country is heading in the right direction.
Secondly, the American electorate is moving toward the
Democrats with registration in both parties running 41 percent to 32 percent in
favor of the Democrats. Thirdly, candidate Obama is much more intelligent, much
younger, much more appealing and much more charismatic than candidate McCain.
And, on issues, the Democrats should have a huge edge because people are tired
of an expensive and unpopular war, because the economy is in bad shape and
getting worse with the deepening financial crisis, and because a lot of people
are suffering economically and financially, while oil prices are going through
the roof. Many middle class Americans also have concluded that the time has
come to improve the American health care system and the American pension
system.
Therefore, since a Democratic presidential candidate
should logically be the overwhelming favorite to defeat the Republican nominee in November, is this
an election for Sen. Obama to lose? Will there be a “Bradley effect” with
white voters telling pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate, such
as Senator Obama, but could instead vote their prejudice? Will there be a
backlash from progressive Democrats as their candidate moves more and more to
the right?
In theory, candidate Obama and his advisers
would have to make a bundle of mistakes and come out with very bad decisions to
lose this election, when everybody is expecting the Democrats to gain several
seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives on November 4.
As of now, it is widely recognized that candidate
Obama has begun his official presidential campaign on the wrong foot by
disillusioning his own progressive political base by wavering on issues.
Indeed, on June 4, candidate Obama went before the 2008 annual AIPAC conference
and mimicked nearly word for word his hawkish Republican opponent, candidate McCain.
In fact, you would not believe from the quotes placed above
this article that the two main American presidential candidates are from two
different parties, at least, as they position themselves toward AIPAC's political agenda
regarding U.S. foreign policy. When it comes to AIPAC, both presidential
candidates seem to have the same speechwriters
and they behave as if they were members of a common plutocratic one party
political system.
They both would not hesitate to bomb Iran
and they both are pledging to make the world safe for Israel. One
can also expect that neither would refrain from fomenting armed conflicts
around the world. Even on some crucial
domestic issues, such as government warrantless electronic surveillance, both
candidates seem to be in agreement. Indeed, Sen. Obama has sided with the
AIPAC-inspired so-called Bush Democrats
in approving warrantless surveillance of
citizens by the government. On that issue, he has
flip-flopped in approving immunity for George W. Bush and the telecom companies
who wiretapped American citizens without a warrant before 9/11. Both
candidates also rely on rich lobbyists for political advice. Last June 11, for
example, candidate Obama had to remove longtime Washington lobbyist Jim Johnson
from his vice president running-mate search team
after it became known that Mr. Johnson had received preferential loan terms
from the large mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, a firm that Sen. Obama
had sharply criticized before.
On constitutional matters, Sen. Obama would not be
that reluctant in emulating George W. Bush by using public funds to finance
church-run activities. Indeed, he even wants to expand tax-financed faith
based programs. The American military-industrial complex
has also little to fear from an Obama presidency, since Sen. Obama intends to
maintain the high level of U.S. military spending.
All this smacks of some improvisation, despondency and
an absence of firm ideological commitments on Sen. Obama's part, and this plays
into his opponent's charges. But more risky for him, this may persuade some
voters that the two main presidential candidates are only marginally different
and are controlled by the same plutocratic interests.
What the two presumptive U.S. presidential candidates
also have in common is that both have been raised partly outside their own
country, Obama in Indonesia and McCain in Panama. On this score, they are most
unusual candidates and can be expected to be sensitive to international issues.
In fact, both would be expected to be interventionist, McCain being only
slightly more a military interventionist than Obama. This is because both
adhere to the hubristic and imperialistic ideology
that the United States government, without any democratic or legal mandate to
that effect whatsoever, should rule the world. On
the whole, however, it is to be expected that a President Obama would adopt a
somewhat more "pragmatic" and a somewhat more “realist”
foreign policy, in the Bill Clinton administration's style, while a President
McCain would be inclined to duplicate more closely George W. Bush in following
a more “rigidly ideological” and a more unilateral foreign policy.
It is probably on the question of the Iraq war
that Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain
would seem to differ the most. Foremost among Sen. Obama's objectives is his
desire to extirpate his country from the presently occupied Iraq
and stop spending more than one hundred billion dollars a
year in that never-ending war and to devote that money to
domestic social programs. On that score, a strong majority of Americans would
side with him. Sen. Obama's official timetable is to remove all U.S. combat
brigades from Iraq within sixteen months after becoming president. However,
Sen. Obama now says that he can be flexible on this pledge and
that he is keeping some room to manoeuvre based on future advice that he could
receive from military commanders in the field!
This is still at variance with Sen. McCain's position on Iraq, which is closer to the current incumbent, George W. Bush. Indeed, McCain voted for the Iraq war in October 2002, and he would be very happy to continue Bush's policy in Iraq, even to the point of extending the