The Fabulous Week of Barack Obama

History has its own odd ways. In fact, Barack Obama, who from the day he entered the presidential race declared his intent to change, in one thrust, the security agenda of the U.S. and hence completely sever himself from the political heritage of Bush (who saw the essence of everything in the war on world terror), is destined to etch his name in the pages of history as the one who ordered the operation to liquidate the archterrorist Osama bin Laden. And who would have believed that the 44th president, who immediately after his inauguration proclaimed his intention to close the Guantanamo detention camp and open a gentle and placated political dialogue with the “Axis of Evil” and terror, with the passage of two years and a-quarter, would be the one to proudly announce the closing of the cycle that began on 9/11, when praising the United States’ determination to settle accounts with someone who turned into a symbol of hatred and defiance toward the West, its culture and heritage?

While all of Bush’s efforts — whose entire existence was invested in boundless struggle with everyone perceived to be affiliated or identified with al-Qaida — to trap bin Laden went up in smoke, his successor, seemingly a vast ideological distance from him, won the prize. Actually, after the Bush era ended in deafening silence and seemed to fade into oblivion saturated with criticism (particularly in view of the war in Iraq), it makes an impression that at least some of its outlines are regaining a place of honor in statecraft and political theater. Because, in addition to killing bin Laden, don’t forget that Obama’s U.S. has already reinforced twice its troops fighting under NATO auspices on Afghan soil, and the administration is involved today as well in the NATO activity in Libya. Indeed, the strategic reality (and the limitations it dictates) is stronger than the initial vision of the necessity to cooperate with sworn rivals.

From the domestic standpoint, bin Laden’s elimination is but a climax of an especially successful political week for the president. First, one of his major potential rivals in the White House race, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, announced he is dropping out. At the same time, the White House made public the official copies of Obama’s birth certificate and thus exhibited the potential pretender to the crown, Donald Trump (who made the issue of Obama’s birthplace into the banner of an attack on him), in a grotesque and ridiculous light. With this, it struck a crushing blow to other Republican candidates, such as Mike Huckabee, who as well raised doubts concerning Obama being a strictly kosher* [perfectly legal] U.S. citizen, and to the ongoing attempts of the conservative right wing to expel Obama from the mainstream of American experience, culture and history.

Finally, appointing the NATO forces commander in Afghanistan, the charismatic Gen. Petraeus, to be the director of the CIA, looks like a brilliant presidential move. Although Petraeus denied any political ambitions, he recently has been an object of courting by Republican Party elements who hoped to repeat the precedent of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. The latter was drafted by the Republicans into the political system in 1952 and won a sweeping victory in the presidential elections. This appointment, therefore, brings to an end the dreams of Obama’s opponents to turn Petraeus into a trump card and leaves them, at this phase at least, helpless against the President, who has succeeded in establishing himself exactly in the military-security arena.

* Translator’s note: Strictly kosher means in accordance with stringent Jewish law.