Obama’s Phantoms

On the 20th, the first president of black origin in the United States takes on an outlook of the same color. With his intelligence and competence, he would seem to have the situation under control. But he has at least four phantoms ahead.

First: the inheritance of Bush. It is a heavy package but one which Obama will be able to undo with his shrewdness. The “phantom” Bush imposed an ultraconservative ideology at the helm that translated in a major internal intolerance and the intensification of international disorder. He left Obama with a disparaged country, two wars in development (Iraq and Afghanistan) and the recession.

Second: the phantom of Obama himself. He will not be able to do everything that he offered during the campaign (universal health care, investment in infrastructure, clean energy, etc.) when finances looked better. The disillusions will appear quickly. It will be indispensable for him to concentrate his plans for government on the most important convincing aspects that change his plan of action for the conditions of the moment.

Third: the recession. As Obama has repeated this week, this is the worst crisis since the great depression of the 30’s.

Everyone is permitted to suspect, furthermore, that we have not yet hit the bottom. While unemployment is already almost three million people, Obama offers to create the same number of jobs. It isn’t clear how he will be able to achieve that. The fiscal deficit will be at least three times bigger than that of 2008; with its 1,200 trillion dollars, it is the biggest since the Second World War as proportion of GNP (8.3%). These figures do not take into account Obama’s package. This could be an uncontrollable contributing factor of future hyperinflation and the depression of the dollar. Will better times come?

Fourth: The United States against the world. Far from contributing to the relaxation of international tensions, Bush intensified them. Maybe Tom Shannon from the State Department to Latin America was the exception; in that region, pragmatism and realpolitik prevailed. These are the blessings of marginality. The reiterated promise of Obama that diplomacy will take command –and not weapons- has its test of fire in the Middle East conflict.

Hillary Clinton recently emphasized in her audience of ratification in the Senate that she will look for a fair and lasting peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis. If this were to be, diplomacy would be the key. With this she would be backing the narrow valid position of putting all the eggs in one basket (Israel), blockade Gaza and promote the conflicts between the Palestinians. Transcendental announcement then for an “agreement” requires that the actors converse and negotiate. This involves, logically, not only the Israeli government (and others in the region), but all the Palestinian representatives (that is to say, not only Fatah but Hamas also). If this phantom can be overcome by Obama, history will have passed.

Finally, Latin America. As Richard Lagos has said, the agenda is vast: commerce, international finance architecture, climate change, immigration, renewable energy, the drug trade and the fight against organized crime. Perhaps the region isn’t a phantom, but in this agenda there is plenty of fabric to cut and the space to move forward.