The next election presents a chance for America to elect a President capable of building international consensus across diverse fields in order to solve complex contemporary foreign policy issues and world matters like terrorism. Who is best qualified for the job?
There was a time when we all viewed America as a beacon of hope, a land where fairness and equality was underpinned by the larger than life image of its people. There was time when we genuinely loved America and what it stood for. Now, our perception of America is different. As international observers, we begun to witness this trend reasonably long ago but this calamitous down-turn was crystallised by the illegal war waged by the Bush-administration in Iraq. After 9/11, America enjoyed a bucket-load of good will and solidarity, we were happy to help out in the war against Afghanistan as the general perception we held was that if Islamic fundamentalists could kill 3,000 innocent people, they were a genuine threat to our shared Western values and way of life.
But like the Biblical prodigal son, the Bush administration squandered this good will by waging an unnecessary, fiendish and criminal war in Iraq. The President of the United States of America essentially LIED to the world about the existence weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and disregarded the UN. Now, I do not buy the notion that it was right to invade Iraq because Saddam was a dictator and was killing his people. Thus, there was some sort of moral obligation to interfere. Fine, Saddam was horrible but so is Mugabe. No one has invaded yet. This is an argument put forward by conservative war mongers and was made by the republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson on the Jay Leno show. This position is elementally stupid and seriously indicative of serious intellectual dementia amongst the conservatives and other such people who hold this position. If we go by that justification, USA should have invaded all the African countries which were being governed by dictators, after all, these dictators have and are still killing their people. The problem with neo-con American foreign policies creators and executors is that they think people are stupid and incapable of discerning things for themselves. There are so many dictators in many quasi-nations in Africa and Asia running around killing their people but maybe no one is interested because these nations are not sitting on vast oil resources.
Unarguably, the greatest foreign policy disaster of our generation is the Iraq war. The stupidity of this war is unbelievable, and the anti-west sentiment it has inflamed is unprecedented. We are now witnessing terrorist attempts in places as obscure as Scotland. I am not naïve, I believe the threat of terrorism has to be addressed headlong and as robustly as possible, but I also believe it should be addressed within an acceptable legal framework and vitally, I believe it is important to secure international consensus in this process of fighting terrorism. This is an area where the Bush administration has failed so woefully, it is pitiful. You have Condi Rice travelling around but making no deals, you have a president who has refused to institute serious diplomatic correspondence with countries like Iran. The fundamental principle is that if you have a problem with someone, there are only two ways to solve it. You either have a serious in-depth conversation with that individual or you beat that individual up. Beat him up properly and comprehensively. Thus, since it is not prudent to invade Iran, the USA has to robustly engage the country. Stupid rhetoric and trying to appear tough will not solve anything; it will only harden Iranian defiance. Doesn’t anybody in Washington have a working brain?
The culmination of the stupidity of the Bush administration has ultimately led to a situation in which America is perceived as an international bully. This has not always been the case, people used to love America, people used to want to be American. People used to want to live the America dream, now all they want to do is wake up from the nightmare. Your next election is an opportunity for you to elect a president who can make us love America again. The basic step he/she has to take is to stop the war in Iraq and try to stabilize the region. To achieve this, the Sunni, Kurds and Shia have to become more autonomous, thus some sort of decentralisation has to occur. There has to be a workable oil sharing formula. The surrounding nations have to be involved and American presence, which acts as a magnet for insurgents has to be limited. Taking these steps will initiate the road map to stability in Iraq; anything else is a waste of time. You can ‘surge’ all you want, you are simply wasting your time. Importantly, at the fundamental stages, there will still be American presence in the region. It will be daft to just remove all the soldiers, as this will be an invitation to madness. Thus, I do not agree with Bill Richardson. I think his position is inherently flawed and not properly thought-out. I agree with a combination of Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s proposal.
Now, to repair America’s battered image, you need a president that will be able and prepared to engage nations of the Middle East responsibly and sensibly. A president who is sworn in, with a mentality of ‘us against them’ will be a disaster. Thus, this automatically disqualifies Giuliani, Thompson, Hunter, Romney and practically every other republican aspirant. Ron Paul is living in a dreamland; Tancredo is obviously an intolerant extremist. The only viable candidate who appears to possess this trait is Huckabee. He is a person of interest. All the other candidates will only expand the unilateralism that Bush is pushing right now. They will inflame more anti-American sentiment. No need to talk about McCain, he will drop out soon anyway. This leaves you with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Hillary is known everywhere. She could be viable. The problem is that she has a fundamentally entrenched and defined Washington mentality. It may be difficult for her to break away from this mentality to creatively propose non-traditional steps to solving complex contemporary foreign policy issues. I do not buy the experience rubbish. She has just as much experience has everybody else. Her inability to perceive that the Iraq invasion was a stupid option from the start, when even I could see this clearly automatically nullifies the notion that she has experience. However, she would be better that any conservative (Huckabee is a person of interest still). Common sense dictates that Obama or Edwards would be the better option.
I am comfortable with either of them. I believe they will be able to de-escalate the war and engage nations of the Middle East in a constructive way. I am more disposed to Obama however, his ability articulate his vision succinctly is unequalled and his sense of judgement in complex situations is impressive. A practical example is the hullabaloo regarding the move-on ad. The man simply did not vote. This was such a strategic move that I was appalled by the fact that Hillary did. He is best suited to perform the task of building international consensus that can put the USA back where it should rightfully be. His openness to responsibly engage other nations is in personal alignment with the view I hold, that, we need more international diplomacy. I was also impressed with his attempt to redirect the debate towards the area that the war against terror should be in Afghanistan, a position that the present prime minister of Great Britain holds. There is no reason why Osama Bin Laden should not be dead. There is no reason why he should be making stupid videos and interrupting my viewing of normal news.
All in all, while most of the democratic candidates can robustly help improve America’s image, I believe Obama is best suited to do this. He is not divisive, radiates humility and appears to be able to build consensus across diverse fields of people. A Romney or Giuliani would be a disaster. These are people that want to expand NATO to involve Israel and believe there are’ too many mosques’. People like these are either stupid or lack the ability to see beyond their noses. And to make people love America again, you need to have a vision. Obama appears to have that vision.