Obama’s Metamorphosis

For the last few weeks, the United States has had a new president, or at least a somewhat different incarnation of the person elected to the White House in November 2008. Obama is less intellectual, less conciliatory, less willing to offer his hand to opponents. He became rude and aggressive. He canceled the traditional summit between U.S. and the European Union. He interrupted a conversation with the Israeli prime minister to go to lunch. He had telephone conversations with other political leaders who were called “franks” (the term preferred by diplomacy when it must describe a political clash between people with different opinions). He has disappointed his environmentalist voters by starting the drilling of new oil wells in protected areas that even his predecessor had not dared to violate. Is this the real Obama, stripped of the liberal cover with which he had presented himself to the society of the country? Or this is just a transitional phase dictated by the circumstances?

It is likely that the origin of this metamorphosis resides in the long journey through Congress of the health care reform. There was a time when the battle seemed to be lost. Obama has managed to turn it around by avoiding every other commitment and devoting himself completely to a task he considered vital. He won in the end, thanks to the determinant support of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and a series of bargains that have greatly reduced the range of the original project. Still, he failed to crack the Republican front and now he knows that many opponents of the reform are determined to seek revenge at the polls in November, when Americans will vote for the partial replacement of Congress.

That’s not all. Obama knows that the neocons have emerged again from the shadows and they are organizing a deadly attack against his foreign policy. They want to remind him, with evident satisfaction, that his international initiatives have not had any effect. Military operations in Afghanistan have produced some good results, but they haven’t hit the heart of the Taliban. In Pakistan and Iraq, terrorism continues to sow terror and kill. Iran’s regime is no longer threatened by the opposition and continues to pursue a nuclear policy that America considers intolerable.

But the most painful chapter of foreign policy inaugurated by the president is still Israel. The neocons accuse Obama of having betrayed his best friend in the Middle East. Liberals accuse him of not being strong enough with a government that has systematically rejected, in terms of settlements, Washington’s requests.

Rather than fighting to defend himself, Obama has decided to counterattack, hoping to cash successes that will enable him to cope with the electoral test in November from better positions. In Prague, he signed a treaty reduction of nuclear weapons with Dmitri Medvedev. He will try to convince China and Russia to accept a series of sanctions against Iran. He will continue to exert pressure on Israel to reach an agreement with Syria. But it is likely that the economy will be the decisive factor, possibly affecting the outcome of the November elections.

If the good signals are confirmed, the president has a good chance of getting out of the elections with his head held high. If the recovery is fragile and the economy stagnant, no international success will spare him of sharing Congress with a Republican majority until the end of his first term.