Dec 29 2008
The crashing silence of Mr Obama
On the economy we have heard from the President elect. Apparently the only thing wrong with the high spend high borrow strategy of George Bush is that he didn’t overspend and over borrow enough. We should expect more of the same when President Obama sits in the Oval Office.
On the alleged corruption within the Democratic party over the future of Mr Obama’s Senate seat in Chicago we hear loud and clear that whilst the police have interviewed Mr Obama he had nothing to do with whatever did happen.
Yet on the terrifying war in the Middle East that is daily claiming so many victims we hear the sound of silence. We are told that the USA can only have one President at a time. That is useful line when the wind is in the north.
The worry I have had about an Obama Presidency is twofold. Someone who was so good at persuading many that he is on their side will not find it easy to come off all the fences he has been elegantly astride. Being in power means taking sides and making decisions.Someone who put the case for change without specifying what changes will struggle in practise to differentiate what he is doing from what his predecessor was forced to do as he saw it by circumstance and by the mighty high spending Washington machine with all its vested interests.
With Mrs Clinton as Secretary of State it is difficult to believe there will be much change over Middle East policy. With Mr Obama himself wanting to intensify the war in Afghanistan it is difficult to believe there will be much change in policy. With the present Secretary for Defence staying in office it is difficult to believe there will be much change of policy. Yet surely, if change is needed, it is above all needed in the US approach to the Middle East?
12 Responses to “The crashing silence of Mr Obama”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Yes, Mr Obama has studied at the Blair school of “nice-sounding vacuous-ness” Quite staggering he was elected really.
You are quite right, on the economy, his views that Bush was not sufficiently profligate seem very odd indeed, but I think he may even do worse in foreign policy. There is this view amongst several democrats that Iraq was the wrong war and Afghanistan, the right one. That’s dead wrong. Despite my massive misgivings, it looks like Iraq might, just might, be able to be a reasonably country in a few years with a decent oil-based economy. Many dangers of course, but there is a chance.
In Afghanistan, there is none. The elections are a farce to elect a talking shop with no power outside of the foreign troops. The economy is wholly drug-based and as we refuse to deal with the farmers of opium, who do you think maybe funding their war with drugs money? Yep, the Taliban. So until we deny the Taliban funding, the war continues and we won’t deny them the funding because of the “war on drugs” No other viable economy can emerge in Afghanistan for several years (I understand it was formerly agrarian, vineyards etc) so drugs will continue.
The Russians tried with 100,000 troops and no moral restraint, they failed. Can we hope to be more successful with far fewer troops and more restrictions? The troop surge that Obama will possibly deploy, though doubtless welcome to the guys on the ground, won’t achieve its long term aim, UNTIL WE STOP FUNDING THE TALIBAN.
Several pundits have said that the Israeli response to the continual rocket attacks is disproportional. I hold no brief for the Jews. They and the arabs are just two sides of the same coin in my opinion, however what are they to do? Should they count the casualties, and, when this number is reached on the other side, stop the conflict. I can see no answer to the problem, as both sides are intractable. War will only end when all the protagonists are dead.
Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 29th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Or perhaps when both sides stop believing the nonsensical fairy stories that drive them to murderous acts?
mikestallard Reply:
December 29th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Allow me to point out to you that both the Koran and the Old Testament are not fairy stories. That is, actually, pretty offensive.
However, I will willingly agree with you that for Muslims the Koran is quite definite about the correct attitude to Jews. To take just one example, the Jews of Qurayzah were exterminated by the Prophet in cold blood. “This is a grim and horrible story and has hideous overtones for most of us today.” (Karen Armstrong).
This isn’t a “clever” quote either. The Prophet himself, at certain times of his life, was harassed by the Jews and attacked them quite openly.
Those of us who have had the benefit of a Christian education will recall, I am sure, the passage about David and the foreskins. The Psalms, too are full of rich imagery. Most of the early Judges, too, and, indeed Moses himself were pretty well bathed in Philistine blood.
To think that anyone can stop this conflict, which goes back to the very dawn of our history, is, actually, pretty arrogant. Mr Obama is not the Messiah: just a career politician from Chicago. the Palestinians, in Arabic are, I understand even called “Filistini” – Philistines!
John Reply:
December 29th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Just because you think that the Koran and the old testament are not fairy stories doesn’t make them true. Religion has been the cause of a vast amount of murder, torture, and ethnic cleansing. What is offensive is the way you dismiss Stuart Fairney’s comments.
I too felt Obama to be the Tony Blair of US politics. His “team” is full of contradictions and I suspect will be deadlocked on Trade, Environment and Defence within a few months. Expect a few high profile departures, only then can we see the true direction he will lead the US. (Remember Frank Dobson as health Secretary here? Scrapped the internal market and GP fundholding and assumed all would be well, chaos ensued and he was shunted off to be the sacrificial lamb in the first contest for London Mayor).
What worries me is that Obama will bow to the farmers, steel makers, auto unions and teamsters and retreat into the sort of isolationist/protectionist, US first and at home policy mindset which did so much damage to the world economy through the late 19th and early 20th century.
Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 29th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
There is every chance you are right. He may well pay-off everyone who comes a’callin’ jack-up taxes, spiral the debt out of all control and end up busting them. That would be very bad for all of us. Even now, US treasury deby trades on a negative return, a couple of years of Mr Obama and Hillary and things could me much, much worse.
Your comparison is good, except that of course, Blair’s nonsense was enveloped by the expanding economy, Obama has no such buffer. One-term failure just like Carter before him.
The muted response from the UK and USA Governments speak volumes about the power of the Jewish lobby in those countries. If Iran had so much as killed one foreign civilian in a military act the noise coming from the UK and USA Governments and their allies in the media would be deafening.
Until the power of the Pro-Israeli lobby especially in US politics and US media can be tackled and a neutral stance taken on the Middle East the slaughter will continue.
When realigning their policy towards the Middle East, the Americans should prioritise discussions with the Syrians. As the Syrian government is facing the prospect of economic ruin (their burgeoning bureaucracy is costing them dear, along with the running costs of subsidising a lot of day-to-day goods for their people) and as they continue to support both Hizbullah and Iran, it is the Syrian state that lies on the precipice in every major Middle Eastern conflict: from Israel-Palestine to Israel-Lebanon, and from Iran-Israel to the more generalised problems of terrorists with an Arab or Islamic origin.
Obama needs to direct Clinton towards the Syrians – whether to buy them off with the promise of UN funding in return for a peace deal with Israel, which in turn would yield some promising results for the Western diplomats’ struggles over Palestine and Iran, or to take a much harder line than perhaps Bush has done. Rhetoric must be backed up with action – and not the kind of ill-thought through action that has seen the Western forces win a war but lose the ensuing occupation.
For what it’s worth, I think the issues above should be of more concern to an Obama White House than the conflict in Iraq (which, perhaps, will remain a domestic fight and not spill out to the surrounding areas – especially if Iran and Syria can be pacified). The DoD could still conduct a surge in Afghanistan whilst the State Department placed more western-lying Middle Eastern states on the top of the pile.
One day we may discover for which organisation Mr Obama is the front man and I don’t mean the Democratic Party.
Is it right to say that only religious people can understand Muslims?
The Book of Maccabees tells the story of how the Jews were beginning to turn into Greeks. They built a huge stadium in the gentile style in Jerusalem. The Jews removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant.
King Antiochus, the Greek, after a triumphant campaign in Egypt, took away all the golden objects from the Temple.
Two years later, he sent an official to Jerusalem. His words were friendly but full of force. Once he had gained the city’s confidence, he suddenly attacked, plundering the city and setting it ablaze. The city of David was turned into a citadel, where he deposited the massed plunder of jerusalem.
The king then issued a decree throughout his empire: his subjects were all to become one people and abandon their own laws and religion.
It was at this point that the family of Judas Maccabaeus revolted. And do you blame them?
People often say that religion causes all the wars in the world. Not true. But this, believe me, is a religious conflict which no amount of “being nice” or “winning hearts and minds” is going to cure.
All in all the problem with Middle East policy is that there is far to much of it. The arab countires are relatively poor, disorganised & excepting the oil, which they don’t actually produce, add nothing to the world economicaly or culturay. The whole Middle East is far less important than China or indeed the smaller far eastern countires & probably less so than former Yugoslavia. The nercessity for a “settlement” in Gaza is far less than for one in Congo, Sri Lanka, Karen, Kosovo or Srpska. Stop worrying about it, stop subsidising the Palestinian dependency culture & ignore it.