Obama Does Not Intend to Keep His Promises Either

Obama has had the opportunity to keep two of his campaign promises: to recognize the Armenian genocide and to intervene in the crisis in Darfur.

Neither one of these has happened.

It turns out even Barack Obama does not intend to keep all the promises he made to the tens of thousands of voters who put him in power. It is a predictable conclusion, but nevertheless there are always those who are shocked. Obama may represent a new breed of politicians, yet he still carries many of the old politicians’ weaknesses as well.

He is just like Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to lower taxes and never did; just like Ariel Sharon, who vowed to hold on to the settlement of Netzarim and did not keep his promise; and just like Ehud Olmert, who promised to make Israel into a fun place to live.

Obama might be the best looking of the bunch, taller and more refreshing, yet that doesn’t mean he is a better leader, that he is more talented, or that his promises necessarily mean more.

Last week Obama visited Turkey. It was a successful trip, considering the circumstances. During his election campaign, the American candidate promised that as president he would recognize the Armenian genocide.

This might still happen; however, while in Turkey, which would have been a great opportunity to fulfill his promise, he did not keep his word. The American president was content with merely calling on the Turks and Armenians to stop focusing on the past and start looking into the future, an appropriate recommendation which could have come from the previous president and the one before him.

A year and a half ago the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives, along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, put forward a motion initiated by Jewish congressman Adam Schiff of California to affirm the American recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Pre-Election Morals

It was a bold move: challenging, cheeky, impudent. “We won’t succumb to pressure,” Pelosi promised. Those were the days when she had an easy opponent: President Bush. He was the bad guy, the man who talked about democratization and human rights yet surrendered to pressure from lobbyists. Pelosi and company were the moral, good and independent bunch who did not retreat even in the face of Turkish threats.

They rode this wave for two or three weeks until they folded after a large group of former secretary of States, Republican and Democratic alike, gave them a short lesson on American strategic interests in the Middle East.

Obama was also more moral prior to the election, when he was still a just candidate without responsibility or worries, in regards to both the Armenians and to Sudan. Here was a candidate who wanted to post peacekeepers in Sudan in order to prevent the massacre in Darfur, and now he has become president.

Another candidate, Joe Biden, is currently the vice president. During his campaign, Biden said he did not think it was the right time to take the military option off the table, and in fact, he would like to deploy American military forces to Sudan immediately.

Lots of Talk, Little Walk

In the past few weeks he has been silent. A new American envoy went to Khartoum and returned home. Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, participated in the Arab League Annual Summit and received support from other Arab leaders. Aid organizations were expelled from Darfur following the International Criminal Tribunal’s decision to indict Al-Bashir. And Biden? He didn’t say a word.

These are two clear examples of the gap between the Obama the Candidate and Obama the President. It is not coincidence that the first things that get tossed out the window are Armenia and Darfur; the human rights issue is a very convenient subject for a candidate – it allows him to assume a positive image and present the current leader, who is being pragmatic, in a bad light.

Just like global warming, the subject of human rights is one politicians love to talk about a lot but end up doing little. Now Obama, like Ronald Reagan in the second half of the 1980s, is talking about global nuclear disarmament, which is another one of these subjects. They can talk the talk, but not walk the walk.

As it is, Obama is a smart man, and important as well. Even so, not every passing thought in his head justifies an exaggerated profundity. Here is one last example: Obama also supports the Annapolis talks.