Obama, a President

If Americans would just stay quiet, they wouldn’t keep talking rubbish. But this would not stop them from screwing up. Those who primarily consider me to be anti-American are very much mistaken.

Barack Obama awakened the imagination of millions of people all over the world. Obama was something new, but it is also true that the world was sick of George W. Bush — so sick that it lamented Bill Clinton’s departure. Barack Obama at the end of his first term is nothing more than an American president worse, and with less imagination, than the last Democrat in the White House: Bill Clinton. If his first term carries on as it started, Obama will have been a colossal disappointment. The policy in Iraq and Afghanistan did not change, except maybe to emphasize operations more secretive than the covert actions of the Reagan era. Guantanamo saw no change, nor have the prisoners received different treatment or benefited from the rights, liberties and guarantees enjoyed by any American citizen.

The economy is still unregulated, and the financial crisis the world is experiencing was conceived, born and raised in the United States. Obama acted as he could, without much imagination or determination, and shifted the onus on Europe, which has absolutely no idea how to solve the problem, letting the principle of “every man for himself” take root.

The financial crisis, transformed now into a profound economic crisis, continues to drive international policy without strong leadership that would enable the world to withstand it. However, the fault is not only that of Americans. Obama’s leadership — leadership that is always expected from a United States president — did not materialize. On the contrary, Barack Obama was literally dragged by Sarkozy for an adventure in Libya. Before this, the American administration let itself be caught by surprise (or it just seemed to be, which would be even worse) in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Yemen and in other Arab states, allies or not. Washington may have been surprised, but the U.S. cannot be overcome by allies such as Sarkozy. As the dominant power, the U.S. should assume leadership and avoid major mishaps, which the Americans have not always managed successfully.

In Egypt, they let their principal Arab ally in the Middle East, Hosni Mubarak, fall. Things have not gone as badly in Egypt as in Libya because after the White House pulled the carpet out from under Mubarak, it was the military which assumed power, if only “temporarily.” The military junta tried to push forward a transition, looking for space for a political maneuver that would permit them to reduce the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood and prevent its rise to power through election of a more Islamic force.

With the discontented multitude in the streets, Washington made public its reservations about the Egyptian military’s decisions, possibly to reduce anti-American sentiment in Egypt. But this did not succeed. Even if they were denied sympathy, it is no less true that this generated strong feelings against the military that deposed Mubarak.

In the build-up to presidential elections in the United States and with the far-from-attractive Republican candidates, there remains hope that in Barack Obama’s second and final term, he will demonstrate the leadership that he lacked in the first.