Reactions to Obama's Historic Moment From Around the Globe

AlterNet. Posted January 21, 2009.

America's fate in the coming decades is not to swagger but to be relegated. Successfully managing relegation is as great a test of leadership as is handling expansion, but it is a different test. Though he may not yet be comfortable with the idea, the role for which he has been chosen is the management of national decline.

Though burdened with unrealistic expectation he will be the first US president to accept not the possibilities but the constraints of power. One of his great challenges will be to bring his country to a peaceful recognition of this.

…He will have to find a way of being honest with Americans about their country's fall from hegemony. In a nation that bristles at any suggestion that they can be beaten at anything, the depth of this challenge should not be underestimated.

"Yes we can!" was an easy sentiment to endorse. "No we can't," will be a far, far harder thing to say.

Spain's ABC Journal cautioned against what it sees as "irrational exuberance" surrounding Obama:

Of the Three Kings [in the Bible, who visited Jesus after his birth], the Black King, Balthasar, is the one most favored by children who trust in his infinite prodigality and capacity to meet their requests. As if the Black King had some special powers to always meet the expectations placed on him.

That is what occurs to adults with Barack Obama, the other magical black king. Obama is expected to take us out of crisis in less than six months, while it took Roosevelt more than 10 years. He is trusted to have a great strategy to, once and for all, settle Afghanistan, a country where British, Soviet and NATO allies have failed for 100 years, to draw the troops from Iraq without causing more shame, to close Guantánamo without, in the process, allowing terrorists to escape, to teach the Iranians the errors of their ways …

Although Obama is globalized and well-traveled, everything indicates that, following the misadventures in Iraq and other failed missions, the U.S. administration will live a far less ambitious stage outside that of Bush. Many of those who voted for Obama expect him to focus his energies on improving their homeland and forget old dreams of grandeur. An inevitable disappointment to the world will soon arrive.

Not surprisingly, many editorials were dedicated to how the new administration would respond to issues facing their respective regions. Egypt's Al Ahram decries Obama's "silence on Gaza":

Apparently American President-elect Barack Obama prefers silence to making any sound about the Indian-Pakistani military escalations and the missile shield row between Russia and NATO. But a look at the tragic and heart wrenching bloody scenes of Gaza he came to know from both TV and intelligence reports will not break this silence. Indeed, Obama's behavior implies double-dealing and cautiousness. Perhaps he believes that adopting an attitude other than expressing his worries would be more risky than being accused of passivity. What he intended to say might frustrate the Palestinians and Arabs, even with the optimum aspects of diplomacy.

Pakistan's Dawn discusses the U.S. Presence in Afghanistan:

WHY would the United States commit itself to being in Afghanistan in the long run? The Afghans have shown time and again, most recently when the Soviet Union tried to occupy their country, that they have zero tolerance for the presence of foreign troops on their soil.

This is the case even when the troops have come in with the consent of the government in Kabul. Welcome has also run out for the Americans and Nato. The increased violence directed at the forces from these sources is the result of the increasing unpopularity of the government headed by President Hamid Karzai. Why would Washington take the risk of losing its soldiers and cultivating extreme hostility by staying on in Afghanistan? Are their strategic interests for America to protect that would justify taking these risks? These questions and the answers to them have great significance for Pakistan.

We should not seek answers to these questions from the rhetoric of the campaign when as candidate Barack Obama promised that if elected his administration would give a high priority to winning the war in Afghanistan. He had opposed the attack on Iraq even before he appeared on the national political scene. Once there, he articulated a position that contributed to his success in the elections. He said that President George W. Bush had wasted American blood and treasure on a war that did not have any justification. He promised to pull out American troops from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan where Washington was fighting a just war. That was, however, then. Will he persist in this approach in the presidency?

And the Moscow Times urges Obama not to launch a new Cold War.

See more stories tagged with: iran, iraq, economy, obama, afghanistan, middle east, gaza, crisis, pakistan, world opinion, inauguration

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