No

by Mark Hopkins

Created on: January 28, 2010

President Obama faces an uphill struggle to change world perceptions of the USA. The President himself is a remarkable and admirable man. 'Change we can believe in' and 'Yes we can' are all very well and good as campaigning slogans, but the key word is WE, i.e., Americans. Just look at the opposition to Health Care reform, just look at the vilification of the President by those opposed to lifting a finger to help the disadvantaged in their own country. He can't force change on a nation unwilling to change. America is nothing if not a Democracy and Mr Obama needs the Congress to change if America is to change. With Massachusetts electing a Republican to the Senate, pigs might fly!

This is the reality of American politics. A progressive President can be hamstrung by the Congress. The Constitutional thinking behind this is perfectly sound, of course, but it reminds us that merely electing  a' good man' to be President does not automatically bring about radical change. Both the Congress and the Supreme Court can stand in the way.

Aside from stalling Health Care reform, consider the Middle East. Soon after his inauguration, President Obama visited Egypt and spoke eloquently of the need to help Palestinians. He signalled, at last, the prospect of a more even handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the part of America. An obdurate Israel ignored his urging of a freeze on new settlement building in the Occupied Territories. Behind the scenes, the massively powerful pro-Israeli Jewish lobby in the USA flexed its muscles. Mr Obama has made no progress towards helping the Palestinians, Israel continues to build more and more illegal settlements and abuse its power over the Palestinians. Peace talks remain stalled.

On climate change the USA still seems committed to doing too little, despite the fact that Mr Obama does at least accept the considered opinion of the scientific community rather than that of the Oil industry, as his predecessor did. The deal-within-a-deal cooked up by a few nations at Copenhagen has made the challenge harder for the world not easier, and allows the American economy to continue to generate a disproportionately large amount of CO2. It's not President Obama's fault, but another reminder of the limitations of his power in face of entrenched American interest groups.

On Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Quaeda and the counter terror strategy, American under President Obama has performed better. He seems to have no illusions that every nation is just aching to be transformed into a miniature USA and that democratic traditions which took centuries to evolve can be grafted instantly onto complex tribal societies.  Whether he is now about to embroil the USA in Yemen remains to be seen. Fundamentally though, while injustice persists in Palestine there will be misguided people who see anti-American  terror and insurgency as an apt response, and Mr Obama seems to have backed off from confronting the Israelis.

With a 'satisfaction' rating of just 48% now, (as of  January 27th 2010), Mr Obama seems to be loosing the support of many who voted for him. With America's economic and unemployment woes after the banking crisis uppermost in many ordinary Americans' minds, the President is suffering for not having been able, instantly, to bring about the change he seemed to promise. In his weakened state, more ambitious initiatives on the world stage may become harder to push through Congress. So may Health reform. Promising to deal with the arrogance of the Banking sector is sensible and may be popular with ordinary Americans but it remains to be seen if Wall St. funded lobby groups disrail this too.

To the wider world it all seems familiar and depressing. Rich lobby groups and vested interests make changing America a bit like trying to halt a heavily laden super-tanker. For along time, nothing seems to happen. Sometimes Presidents do not get re-elected. One has to question whether a sufficient number of Americans who vote (as opposed to those who choose not to vote) actually care about what other nations think about their country and if so whether they think  any change is desirable.

In the mind of  rest of the world, America chose to be a military super power in the aftermath of the Second World War and has seen fit to interfere in many issues, often for the good of the wider world community but by no means always. Her power and influence dwarfs that of any other Western nation  and can so easily lead to arrogance, selfishness and insensitivity. For the world to be persuaded that the image and the reality of the USA  have improved, 'change we can believe' in will need to be enduring, unselfish and global. There seems to be a long way still to go.     

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