Obama, A Study In American Ambiguity Norman Birnbaum

From El País (Madrid), 2 July 2009

Obama, A Study In American Ambiguity

Norman Birnbaum

“God, protect me from my friends. I will deal with my enemies.” President Obama has regretted that he does not speak fluent French---in the eyes of many citizens, an unpatriotic thought. Still, he appears to know Voltaire’s bon mot.. In addition to rebukes to American profligacy by our major creditor, China, and criticism of US economic management by everyone else, he inherited multiple crises— each potentially damaging to his Presidency. The new Israeli government is intransigent and self-destructive.. The North Koreans are recklessly provocative. The Iranian regime is unmoved by invitations to discussion. Russia refuses to accept relegation to a secondary international role. The US army in Iraq is at risk, the country near civil war. The mission in Afghanistan is unsustainable, whatever our military-political theologians say. Pakistan is in increasing danger of disintegration, as it responds to US pressure to repress its Islamists. In Central America, US forces were sent to train the Honduran army in obedience to civilian authority—with rather limited success. .

Nothing hampers the President more than the narcissistic obsessions of American imperial ideology—which intensify as American power diminishes.

At a press conference, he was asked what steps he would take if Iran refused to annul the Presidential election. The President’s response, that he did not follow the 24 hour news cycle but had to consider the long term, was largely ignored. He has drawn upon the support of those in the armed forces, and government, who reject a permanent war on Islam, who do not think Israel and US interests are inseparable, who conclude that the use of armed force frequently entails incalculable consequences. He listens to elders ( Baker, Brzezinski, Carter, Powell, Scowcroft) who have experienced the limits of US power. The President has divided the more liberal and reflective supporters of Israel from its unconditional adherents. He has said that the Republican unilateralists are loudly but convincingly ignorant. However, he has accepted the Bush doctrine of virtually unlimited Presidential power in matters of national security---implying a permanent state of emergency. That is a concession to the security services, and recognition of the capacity of his antagonists to convince the nation that he is insufficiently commited to its defense.

The President’s ambiguity is purposeful. Those who insist that he break at once with the pursuit of global hegemony have not convinced sizeable segments of the public, much less a majority, of its increasing costs and its unattainability. The public thinks the war in Iraq a failure and the one in Afghanistan dubious, but (an articulate minority apart) has little conception of the institutional and ideological forces which make these disasters inevitable.

There is no broad demand for a reduction of military expenditures, closing of bases abroad, a redefinition of our responsibilities.

The parallel with his reluctance, in economic policy, to greatly increase the power of the state over the market is striking. Rebalancing is sought by a vanguard---but the public, apprehensive about economic security, sceptical of the banks, does not think an alternate system is possible. It is especially susceptible to shopworn notions of the dangers of public expenditure and state deficits. Faced with immense international problems, the President decided that he had to turn to the more rational imperial managers (Gates and the senior military.) Confronting economic crisis, he did not think he could initiate a new New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt drew on three decades of economic and social experiment beginning with the projects of his cousin, Theodore Roosevelt. A divided Democratic Party chose the President rather than Hillary Clinton because it doubted the ideas and programs of its recent past. The projects, social movements, and Congressional majorities which could free him of the necessity of relying on the bankers are conspicuous by their absence.

Will he have enough time and political space to develop serious alternatives? He has to improve the provision of education and health care, restore employment and income. The European Union could help---by developing autonomous projects which would substantiate the President’s foreign policy message, that the US is one nation amongst many. Most of all, however, those Americans who invested their hopes in his candidacy will have to experiment, themselves, in new forms of political participation. The President’s ambiguity, after all, is a consequence of their relapse into passivity.