Can President-elect Obama Rise to the Occasion?

The world, rightly or wrongly, has high hopes from President-elect Obama. During his election campaign he promised to change the world. I do believe he means it but I am not sure whether he fully understands the implications There is another important question too. Even if understands the implications of his promise of changing the world, will he be able to deliver anything meaningful? Let us look at some of his major challenges.

The most important foreign policy challenge before the President-elect is whether he can recover the credibility of the United States as a country which believes in the “Rule of Law?’

Most American presidents since the Second World War have used the international law and institutions when it has suited America and discarded them when it does not. The President-elect has to convince the world that America will henceforth abide by international law even if it goes against American interests.

He may be sincere about fighting terrorism but he must realize that terrorism in one form or another will continue until a just solution is found for the Palestinian crisis. My guess is that with his close association with the Israeli lobbies in America, not many people in the world, let alone in the Islamic world, can believe that he is capable of taking an even-handed approach to solve the crisis and help to secure a just solution. His appointment of Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State confirms such feelings. Admittedly, the Palestinian problem is not easy to solve, since the political power in Israel has been taken over by the right-wing elements who dream of a Biblical Israel. It is this group which is supported by the right-wing Israeli lobbies and the Evangelical Christians in America. To the best of my knowledge, the majority of Israeli and Palestinian people are more moderate in their views and are prepared to make sacrifices for peace in terms of ceding land. Jerusalem may be a sticking point. Even on this issue there may be some scope for flexibility Jerusalem, being the birth place of three religions could be declared a religious city state like the Vatican, run and managed by a democratically elected government by the people living in Jerusalem. The rest of the disputed territories could be divided between the Israelis and the Palestinians by negotiations, both states with security guarantees from the United Nations.

I, being a Gandhian, dislike any country having nuclear weapons. So I am with the Preisdent-elects in his efforts towards dissuading Iran from having nuclear weapons, but then I would like him to persuade other countries including Israel to give up nuclear weapons. Will he support the Middle East being declared a non-nuclear zone, an idea supported by many countries in the region?.

Will he take the lead in giving up American nuclear weapons? Will he stop the development and production of new nuclear weapons such as ‘bunker-busting’ nuclear devices?

With wide spread poverty and destitution around the world, there is a crying need for a drastic reduction in the military budgets internationally. The United States military budget exceeds the total military expenditure of the world as a whole. Will he take the lead in reducing the US military budget significantly (simply by closing down of many of the military bases abroad) and divert the money to reducing domestic poverty and destitution? Not many Americans realize that such bases are often humiliating (or at least an irritant) to the local population and serve no real purpose. Peace can be guaranteed by a reinvigorated UN system and the supply of natural resources can be ensured through trade.

One of the ways of fighting against terrorism is to fight against poverty, hunger and deprivation. This can be done by diverting money from defense expenditure to economic development. One way of doing this is to combine the NATO forces and the UN Peace-keeping forces under the UN banner.. This would not only provide teeth to the UN operations, it would have a major psychological impact internationally. In the Third World NATO forces are seen as a means of colonial control of the resources of the Third World for the colonial masters; Merged with the UN forces this stigma loses force. Such a merger allows America to handover troubled areas like Iraq and Afghanistan to the UN without losing face. I see no reason for the American influence being undermined in this arrangement.


Many countries, including China and Russia are opposed to the weaponization of Space. It is the United States which has been reluctant to support such moves. Will the President-elect take the lead against weaponization Space?

Such decisions are not easy. If the President-elect has the courage and succeeds in his efforts he will have succeeded in changing the world as he promised during his election campaign and he will go down in history as one of the greatest statesman of the twenty first century. But the chances are that he will not be forgiven by the conservatives in America. This may cost him his second term. Whether the gamble is worth taking, is the greatest choice facing the Preident-elect.

The Mumbai Carnage

It is not just the loss of innocent lives that pains me, it is the attack on India's very philosophy of open society, its multicultural life style and the age-old tradition of religious tolerance that is at stake. Those fanatics in India, Pakistan or elsewhere who blame India for mistreatment of minorities have only to walk the streets of Delhi near the Jama Masjeed at night and see the freedom enjoyed by the Indian Muslims. If you wish to see India's treatment of minorities you can see not only the composition of the governments at various levels of India but its cricket team, its film stars and other social and cultural luminaries. This religious tolerance goes far back in history. Thousands of Europeans came and lived in India much before the British began to rule India. These were the Europeans who fled Europe because of religious persecutions. It is this tolerance which is put to test when such carnage takes place. The terrorist hope to drive a wedge between the Indian communities on religious lines. In most cases such attempts have failed. Politically motivated religious riots (encouraged by home grown fanatics on all sides) have occasionally taken place in India but none of the terrorist acts have led to inter-religious strife. All communities all over India have denounced this cowardly killing of innocents in Mumbai.
In fact, this carnage may even bring India and Pakistan closer. After all Pakistan is suffering from similar acts of terrorism. It goes without saying that some elements in both countries do not want to see the warming of relationship between the two countries and they may be behind this carnage. One suspects that some rouge elements of the ISI may be behind such acts. It is important therefore that the present government of Pakistan flushes them out. It is also important that the Pakistan Government also closes down training camps which are openly run in Pakistan under the direct patronage of the ISI. Pakistan must learn from the mistakes of the American administrations which created the Taliban , Osama bin Laden and other terrorists elswhere. It is the terrorists created by the CIA world over that now hauns America and its allies.
So far as India is concerned, the leadership both at the Central as well as local levels, which has clearly shown its incompetence in securing India's security must take stand not only against terrorism but also against any kind of religious bigotry. There is a time to think of abolishing religious schools and strengthening secular and multicultural education in schools. There is also a need for enacting an uniform civil code for all the Indian citizens irrespective of religious beliefs. Minority rights, religions and cultures must be protected but pampering of any group for electoral consideration is bound to be counter-productive. The government must have the courage to take drastic measures against fundamentalists in any community. All the community leaders, particularly, those from the minorities must come in full force to denounce such wanton killings and isolate such forces that encourage such acts of terrorism. Minorities may have genuine grievances; in a democracy like India there is a lot of scope for peaceful protests. Force is not an answer. Even the partition of the country and the resulting millions of deaths and transfer of population did not solve the problem. So let us not acty in a way that intensifies hate on both sides of the divide.