What if?

Will an Obama presidency bring about a sea change in US policies? Hassan Nafaa is hopeful

---

Barack Obama has just leaped a formidable hurdle by beating his venerable and tenacious rival in the Democratic primaries. He is now the candidate that will face Republican John McCain in the US presidential elections in November. As the first African-American candidate for the highest office in the US, Obama has sent tremors through the American political order the repercussions of which may well alter the foundations of American society in the long run. It is little wonder, therefore, that the centres of strategic thinking in the US have begun to ponder the profound changes in the American scene as encapsulated by the title of Eugene Robinson's Washington Post commentary, "Obama rewrites American history".

Many observers hold that Obama has already achieved more than they had expected, which might imply that his chances of reaching the Oval Office are slim. I am inclined to believe that the desire for change, which has been seething below the surface in the US for some time, has given rise to a massive tide of opinion that has rallied behind Obama and will not settle for simply running for president but will rest only when their candidate of choice is across the finishing line and in the White House. So convinced am I in the force of the mounting impetus of this tide that I will not just be disappointed but very surprised if McCain wins in November.

I may have just laid myself open to the charge of bias, but then it is difficult to remain neutral on a question such as this. And I have strong reason to believe that Obama is standing on firm ground. Broad swathes of the American public feel that their country is mired in crisis and that unconventional solutions are the only way out. Ample proof of this can be found in the Democratic primaries which demonstrated the vibrancy in American society that could produce the "Barack Obama phenomenon" as an unconventional response to an unconventional crisis at a unique and, hence, unconventional moment in US history.

Over the course of the primaries Obama showed himself to be charismatic, skilled and astute, assets he used to turn adverse situations to his favour as he presented himself to the American public not as part of their problems but as part of the solution. Under normal circumstances and in ordinary times Obama might have evoked the image of a Guantanamo inmate, as one American political analyst put it. He is young (in his mid-forties), dark-complexioned, oddly named for an American (Barack Hussein Obama were names inherited from his father, a Muslim of Kenyan origin) and he spent some of his early years in an Islamic elementary school in Indonesia. Any one of these traits, in itself, could have been enough to stifle the ambitions of a young man who wanted to "make it" in the US, let alone run for president. But Obama has always seen himself as 100 per cent American. He was born in the US to a white mother, brought up as a Christian by his grandparents on his mother's side, and was educated in the best universities in the States (Occidental College in Los Angeles, Columbia University and Harvard). After obtaining his doctorate from Harvard Law School he went on to become a professor of law at the University of Illinois, another prestigious institution. Obama then turned his keen intelligence and skills to a full-time career in politics. In 1996 he was elected to the senate of Illinois in which state he now resides. Eight years later he was elected to represent the state in the Senate of the federal government. As if his accomplishments so far were insufficient he now sets his sights on becoming the chief of the federal government. Ordinarily the odds would have been against a young man of his race and name but his ambitions converged with the needs of the times and he began to outshine his own already impressive talents and accomplishments.

Obama grasped how severe problems were gnawing away at American society. He read the situation closely and concluded that America needed a leadership capable of producing a new type of political discourse with "change" as its banner. He regarded himself as the person most naturally qualified to undertake this role and so far events seem to bear him out. Bringing to bear a remarkable gift for oratory and an acute sense of the popular pulse he has forged a sophisticated and persuasive rhetoric that moves everyone that hears him regardless of their ethnic, religious or political affiliations, and that reminds them of a more noble and brighter face of America that the Bush administration has so dreadfully marred and obscured.

The change that Obama advocates is not something abstract or vague. It is clear, identifiable, realisable, going only so far as to bring America back to the spirit embodied by her founding fathers. It is "change we can believe in", as he put it so simply and concisely, without the slightest whiff of demagoguery.

Obama was an outspoken critic of the war against Iraq and voted against it in Congress. He was consistent with his own political record and thus could boast a level of credibility unavailable to the other nominees who campaigned for "change". That quality, coupled with his oratory, drew millions of supporters and charged the political climate with a spirit reminiscent of the days of Martin Luther King.

If these were ordinary times in the US a nominee like Obama would have been elbowed out of the running in a matter of days by an opponent of the stature of Hillary Clinton. In addition to her clout as first lady to a popular and successful president she is a seasoned politician in her own right, with a more extensive record of experience in domestic and foreign affairs than Obama. As a prominent and astute female politician she naturally stood to draw the support of a women's movement that would ordinarily have had more sway than the African-American movement standing behind Obama. But the Democratic primaries were taking place under exceptional circumstances, shaped by a society that is torn and yearning for change, at an extremely crucial historical juncture. Under such circumstances a conventional candidate such as Hillary Clinton would, at the very least, be given a good ride for her money. As it turned out Obama proved to have not only the greater credibility but a genius for turning the "yearning for change" into a sweeping grassroots force that ultimately dislodged his rival in the primaries in spite of her considerable qualities and advantages. In other words, Clinton might have been able to beat Obama the nominee but she could not beat the Obama phenomenon.

Some commentators fear that Obama's victory could hurt the Democratic Party's chances to take the White House back from the Republicans. The Democratic primaries went on too long, sapped the party's energies and deepened its internal rifts, they argue. I do not agree. There are strong indications that the presidential election scales will tip in Obama's favour. His campaign has been successful in raising funds, another new phenomenon for a Democratic candidate. The Obama campaign has collected more than $250 million during the primaries of which $55 million were donated in February alone. Secondly, Obama has demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for mobilising supporters and tapping the energies of people who previously had little interest in political involvement. Already his campaign has brought on board more than a quarter of a million active volunteers. Much of the credit for this is due to his young and energetic campaign staff who demonstrated a superb ability to mobilise the "virtual society networks" that can be tapped through the Internet, recruiting about 1,300,000 volunteers to participate in the campaign via the web.

What will happen if Obama is elected president of the US? Will his administration change US policy towards the Middle East and, specifically, towards the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Most observers, in their attempt to answer this question, turned to the substance of his campaign speeches and other public statements. Pro-Obama Arabs were shocked by his address to the recent AIPEC convention in which he declared his support for Jerusalem as "the unified and eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel". That could have been Bush speaking, they say in dismay. To me, however, this approach is inherently flawed. Candidates on the campaign tailor their statements and speeches to the objective of the campaign, which is to win. Actual policies are formed only when the winner assumes the duties of office. This applies, above all, to foreign policy which is shaped by forces and interests that are defined in accordance with rationales and mechanisms that are worlds apart from those that define the policies of a campaign trail.

A clearer picture of Obama's possible policy towards this region can be better derived from an analysis of a range of other factors and considerations, the most important of which are the following: foreign policy will be more instrumental than usual in determining voters' choices; Iraq will head the list of foreign policy issues that will influence the outcome of the polls; and an Obama victory will be a vote for change at all levels and on all fields of policy.

If we accept these premises then we can expect an Obama administration to give the search for an honourable exit strategy from Iraq the highest priority on its foreign policy agenda, exploring it as pragmatically as possible, without reference to the ideological, Christian Zionist vision that guided the Bush administration. The Obama team is likely to be inclined to a rapprochement with Iran and Syria and, although for the US such a move would be defined by the exigencies of an honourable exit strategy from Iraq it would inevitably impact on US positions on issues of concern to Iran and Syria, some of which have a close and direct bearing on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Because Israel wants to pre-empt such a prospect it will do its utmost to alter the givens before the end of Bush's term in office. Towards this end it will offer to return the Golan Heights to Syria in order to lure Damascus away from Iran ahead of striking the latter militarily. If that fails, it will probably opt for a military assault against both Syria and Iran. Not only are the chances of Israel succeeding in such objectives limited, the chances also are that such action would further alienate a growing segment of opinion in the US. Among the forces for change that have boarded the Obama train are those that are demanding an end to Washington's flagrant pro-Israeli bias and a clear demarcation between the interests of the two countries. These forces are almost certain to be encouraged by an Obama victory and press more actively for their demands. One strongly suspects that Israel will work furiously behind the scenes to throw its weight behind the Republican candidate in order to keep Obama out of the White House. I suspect this time Israel will not succeed.