Obama krijgt waarschijnlijk zijn tweede termijn, maar met veel liefde zal het niet gaan. In plaats van de enthousiaste meute die in 2008 stond te popelen om de nieuwe belofte in het Witte Huis te krijgen, moet Obama vechten voor iedere stem. Daarna zal hij vier jaar lang in de loopgraven moeten doorbrengen om zijn hervormingen uit zijn eerste termijn veilig te stellen.

Mitt Romney is Obama’s grootste bedreiging. Niet om waar Romney voor staat – dat kan namelijk iedere dag veranderen – maar omdat het enthousiasme voor Obama zelf zó enorm laag is dat steeds meer mensen een keuze tussen Obama en Romney zien als een keuze tussen lood of oud ijzer. Gedesillusioneerde Democraten zullen in een strijd tussen Romney en Obama thuis blijven of uit boosheid misschien zelfs op Romney stemmen. Het is precies dat sentiment dat Team Romney wil voeden door politiek in het midden te blijven en de verschillen tussen hem en Obama te minimaliseren.

Team Romney ondertussen vaart een gevaarlijke koers. Romney mag niet te ver afdrijven van Obama, maar ook weer niet te veel naar links overhellen om onacceptabel te zijn voor de rechtse kiezers in de Republikeinse voorverkiezingen. Maar als hij slaagt in die spagaat en hij wordt de kandidaat, dan wordt Obama gedwongen zelf naar links te gaan bewegen om het broodnodige ideologische contrast met zijn opponent te creëren. Er moet immers wat te kiezen zijn. Het gevaar is duidelijk: schuift Obama te veel op naar links, dan wordt Romney vanzelf aantrekkelijker als de veilige kandidaat van het midden. En daar, in het electorale midden, worden de verkiezingen gewonnen.

Zie hier waarom Obama in de campagne veel liever een rechtse extremist als Rick Perry als opponent heeft. Als het aan Obama ligt worden de verkiezingen van 2012 dus al beslist tijdens de Republikeinse primaries.

Contrast
Het soort opponent dat Obama wil is daarmee duidelijk. Wat hij inhoudelijk tijdens de verkiezingscampagne zal proberen te vermijden is een referendum over vier jaar Obama. Want qua gerealiseerde, populaire hervormingen heeft Obama niet bepaald een sterk CV voor zo’n referendum. Ja, hij heeft voor een Democratische president in zijn eerste termijn veel bereikt, meer dan bijvoorbeeld Bill Clinton. Maar voor iemand die zo geweldig kan communiceren met mensen is het verrassend hoe Obama er de afgelopen 3,5 jaar niet in geslaagd is duidelijk te maken waarom zijn hervormingen goed zijn voor het land en de mensen.

Zijn tegenstanders hebben vervolgens die braakliggende ruimte gepakt om zijn hervormingen negatief te framen. Obama heeft dus qua beleid veel bereikt, maar zijn tegenstanders hebben de veel belangrijkere perceptie gekaapt en ingekleurd. Hierdoor kan het gebeuren dat de door een grote meerderheid van Amerikanen verlangde hervorming van het zorgverzekeringsstelsel nu in peilingen negatief beoordeeld wordt.

Niet dat de Republikeinen een beter voorstel hebben – verre van dat zelfs – maar ze zijn er in ieder geval in geslaagd Obama’s meest belangrijke en in het oog springende hervorming af te kraken. En dat heeft gevolgen, want Obama kan zich nu nauwelijks beroepen op belangrijke – en vooral populaire – successen in de binnenlandse politiek.

Het gevolg: neem peilingen als Obama versus een generieke Republikein. Dus niet één van de bestaande Republikeinse kandidaten, maar gewoon een anonieme Republikeinse kandidaat. Dan komt Obama er al maanden peiling na peiling bijzonder slecht vanaf, zoals ook blijkt uit deze meest recente ‘Obama versus “generic” Republican candidate’ van CBS News. (Zie trouwens ook nog even de cijfers onderaan het hierboven gelinkte bericht om te zien hoe smal de marge tussen Obama en Romney is.)

Wie saai praat, wordt als saai beoordeeld
Het zijn zure druiven voor Obama. Hij is de Democratische president die één van de grootste wensen van de Democraten sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog voor elkaar gebokst heeft, namelijk een hervorming van het complete Amerikaanse zorgverzekeringsstelsel. Maar omdat deze getalenteerde communicator ervoor gekozen heeft zijn hele eerste termijn de oersaaie professor uit te hangen in plaats van zijn successen te verkopen, wordt het in november een ware fotofinish.

Eentje die hij waarschijnlijk wel wint omdat hij straks de grotere campagnekas heeft waardoor hij de Republikeinen steeds een stapje voor zal zijn. Net als in 2008 zal hij zijn tegenstander dwingen geld uit te geven in meer staten dan die tegenstander wil. Maar een prettige campagne wordt het niet. En dan moet Obama ook nog maar hopen dat zijn partijkornuiten in ieder geval de Senaat behouden. De kans dat hij vier jaar te maken krijgen met een uiterst vijandig Republikeins Congres is heel groot.

Zoals Sisyfus zal Obama vermoedelijk weinig lol beleven aan die komende vier jaar in dat Witte Huis.

Lang rekende vooral de Westerse wereld op dictatoriale regimes in de Arabische wereld, feitelijk relieken – pionnen – uit de Koude Oorlog. Een nieuwe rechtvaardiging voor hun onderdrukking van hun volkeren vonden de Mubaraks, Ben Ali’s en Assad’s na 1991 in hun rol als buffer tussen het Westen en moslimfundamentalisme. Nu pas blijkt hoezeer Westerse regeringen zich zand in de ogen lieten strooien. Er werd door hen nooit echt geïnvesteerd in democratische oppositiegroepen, en daarvan plukt men nu de zure vruchten: van beïnvloeding kan geen sprake zijn, men kan slechts hopen dat er geen nieuwe Irans opstaan.

Door Arjen de Wolff

Terwijl in Cairo de protesten tegen president Mubarak hun tweede dag ingaan, wordt in Tunis nog druk gesleuteld aan de vorming van een interim-regering. Er zijn zeker parallellen tussen de revolutionaire gebeurtenissen in Tunesie en Egypte, maar er zijn evenzovele verschillen. En of een of beide van deze volksopstanden tegen een brute dictator uiteindelijk zal leiden tot de totstandkoming van een echte democratische rechtsstaat, is nog zeer twijfelachtig.

Daarvoor is het gebrek aan een brede goed geschoolde middenklasse in de beide landen misschien te groot, en de macht van de corrupte bovenlaag en de Islamisten misschien te overheersend. Hoezeer ook de revolutie in Tunesie en Egypte – op dit moment – gedreven lijkt door een seculiere, progressieve bundeling van krachten en niet door religieuze traditionalisten: echt onafhankelijke, liberale en democatische partijen in het Midden-Oosten hebben meestal geen regeringservaring en geen in de maatschappij en het volk gewortelde organisatie. Dat gegeven alleen al kan de deur in een later stadium nog wijd open zetten voor een terugkeer van oude regimegetrouwen, of de Moslimbroederschap.

Maar wat prettig is aan de omverwerping van Ben Ali in Tunesie en de gebeurtenissen in Cairo, en goed nieuws voor iedereen die zich bezighoudt met de internationale bevordering van mensenrechten en democratie, is dat de Verenigde Staten nu tot hun afgrijzen zien wat velen in het vak van internationale samenwerking al jaren zeggen: nee, Washington, een dictatuur is op de lange termijn geen stabiele partner.

In weerwil van het beeld dat Irak en Afghanistan oproepen is de Amerikaanse buitenlandpolitiek er traditiegetrouw op gericht de Amerikaanse (en, vaak bijgevolg, de Europese) belangen niet primair via directe interventie te verzekeren, maar via bondgenootschappen. En om waar dat nodig is bondgenoten te verwerven om tegenwicht te bieden aan regionale grootmachten, ‘middle powers’ die de Westerse belangen zouden kunnen schaden.

Van alle donoren in de wereld steken de Amerikanen het meeste geld in democratiebevordering, vooral via instituten als NDI (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs), en zijn Republikeinse tegenhanger, IRI. Maar in authoritaire landen die een strategische relatie onderhouden met DC, blijft die bevordering van democratie en mensenrechten maar al te vaak beperkt tot pappen en nathouden.

Echte Realpolitik
Het fundamentele probleem met die tactiek openbaart zich nu in de Maghreb, en straks mogelijk elders: de premisse dat een dictator in ruil voor steun zal blijven leveren, is vals. Niet alleen kan een andere grootmacht langskomen en hem overtuigen de andere kant te kiezen (zie bijvoorbeeld de balanceeroefening tussen de VS en Rusland van Alijev in Azerbaijan en zijn Centraal-Aziatische collega’s); niet alleen kan een autoritair regime min of meer zelfstandig besluiten dat het van nu af aan de Amerikanen niet meer nodig heeft (Chavez in Venezuela, Saddam in Irak); het blijkt nu dat, zelfs in landen zonder democratische traditie, een schijnbaar hopeloos volk de hele kliek naar huis kan sturen.

Ook de Europese Unie en de grote Europese landen bedienen zich van dit recept. Er is ook vaak geen korte-termijn alternatief; want als je nu een gaspijpleiding nodig hebt, of het recht van overvlucht, ontbreekt het je aan de tijd om te wachten tot de oppositie sterk genoeg is om de tiran te verdrijven. Bovendien: of die oppositie bereid zal zijn met je samen te werken, is meestal een open vraag.

Dit soort harde lessen is niet nieuw. Toch valt het te hopen dat de VS, en Europa, dit keer wel inzien dat het hoog tijd is om serieus te beginnen met een andere investeringsstrategie, als het gaat om het creëren van bondgenoten overzee. Steek je geld en je energie in de ondersteuning van organisaties en partijen die werkelijk de fundamentele internationale waarden van politieke en economische vrijheid, rechtvaardigheid, sociale gelijkwaardigheid, transparantie en vrede voorstaan. En die mensen zijn er. Het is een langetermijnstrategie, en ondertussen zullen sommige directe belangen verloren gaan. Maar het is geen idealisme; het is pure Realpolitik. Want alleen zo verzekert het Westen zich van duurzame en betrouwbare partnerschappen, en stelt het de eigen belangen voor de toekomst zeker.

Arjen de Wolff werkte voor het National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in onder andere Azerbeidzjan. Zie het originele artikel hier op Arjen’s website.

Obama’s signature reforms hang in the balance. To preserve them, re-election in 2012 is not merely an option: it is an obligation. If he wins re-election, he will gain the strongest possible ally in his quest to solidify his reforms, and thus his legacy: time.

With Republicans taking back the House of Representatives and Democrats in the Senate divided between liberals and nervous Blue Dogs, Barack Obama suddenly finds himself confronted with a hostile Congress. Republicans are going to focus on Obama with laser-like precision, if only to cover up the deep divisions among their own rank and file. They will not cast themselves as bipartisans. On the contrary, they will be beating the anti-Obama drums right up until the upcoming presidential election. Their idea of ‘seeking compromise’  is a full and unconditional surrender by the other side, meaning helping to roll back all reforms.

Fat chance.

And so the trenches are once again dug. As a result of the unavoibable War of Words that is about to ensue between the two houses, the GOP’s election platform for 2012 will consist of exactly three words: repeal, repeal, repeal!

But that’s not just campaign rhetoric. The GOP actually wants to repeal Obama’s reforms, not merely water them down. As president, Obama can and will veto any proposal to repeal his legislation. But in order for his reforms to become embedded in US society and embraced by voters as their positive effects kick in, he must hold on to that right of veto right up until 2016. At that point, rolling back the changes will be very difficult and likely very unpopular. Time is not on the GOP’s side.

That will make the battle for the White House more important than ever for Obama. Not only will he be fighting for his personal legacy, he will also be leading the Democratic troops in their campaign to preserve the reforms they’ve so long yearned for. Obama’s re-election bid will also be the Democrats’ battle to defend their core principles.

So Obama’s first order of business is to mend fences with an infuriated Democratic leadership. Obama’s quest to enact reforms and his demand that Democratic lawmakers support them has cost them dearly. The trade-off Obama brought to the table was simple: if they voted for his proposals, he would throw his full weight behind them during their election campaigns. Unfortunately that didn’t work out too well for many of them. The already endangered Blue Dog Democrats saw the environment in their predominantly Republican states turn toxic fast. Most were ousted; the GOP took back most of the states in the Midwest and the South they had lost in 2006.

Second, Obama must prove once again that he can win elections. This may come across as a bizarre observation. After all, we are talking about a black man who won the presidency with a wide margin. How can one doubt Obama’s skills as a campaigner? Yet Democrats are shocked at how the White House fumbled the mid-term elections campaign.

During mid-term campaigns the White House acts as a bullhorn, basically laying out the grand strategy and aiding in determining the national talking points, all crafted in one, all-encompassing central message. That was sorely missing, as was the progenitor of the reforms himself. Only in the last two months did Obama go out stumping for the reforms he had delivered. Too little, too late. By waiting too long, he lost touch with his base. At the same time, the Republicans were left room to frame the national debates about health care, the economy and the deficit.

So Obama has three pretty tough fights, and one very serious round of praying looming. First he must deal with an angry party and convince them to follow his lead again. Perhaps there’s a high profile special election – a Senator, a Governor – he can stump for. (And it better be one with a decent chance of winning.) Then he must rally his voter base, especially younger voters and independents who voted for him in mass numbers last time. Third, he must confront the GOP – starting now.

Those are the fights. The prayers are of course private, but if Obama is smart, there’s no doubt that they will be about the economy.

(Image: Creative Commons)

“The administrati0n’s stimulus program has failed.” Thus began an op-ed by economist Allan Meltzer, of Carnegie Mellon University, in the Wall Street Journal of June 30. Yes, the gazillion dollar splurge failed – but not for the reasons Meltzer, or any other critics of Barack Obama’s administration tend to push. The stimulus bill failed because of  impossible expectations. People expected the package worth almost a trillion US dollars to kick-start the economy. That it would bring back the good ole’ times in a flash. It didn’t, it was never meant to do that, and until large chunks of the US economy are completely reinvented and reformed, it never will.

Consider the dire predicament of the US economy. For all the laughter about ‘ old and dead Europe’ , however true such criticism about the Old Continent may be, the United States seem to be in even bigger trouble.

The US economy is between a rock and a hard place. Consumers and companies aren’t spending money, as they simply have little money to spend now that the credit waterfall has – quite rightly – changed into a mere drizzle. Relying on consumer spending therefore won’t cut it. The economy is thus not aided by domestic demand; that’s the rock.

The second pillar  that normally supports a recovery is the exports economy – but alas, the US still imports many more goods and services than it exports elsewhere. The US trade deficit is enormous. This trade deficit is the hard place.

Unable to lean on either domestic support or exports, little else but massive government spending is available as the sole option to keep the economy going. Money simply has to come from somewhere. Aside from providing a pillow to allow a soft landing after a crisis, government spending – in a Keynesian way of thinking – ordinarily also pushes investments, which in turn creates money, which then creates demand, and which then gets the wheels of the economy spinning on its own.

The problem with the US economy is that the wheels are old and rusty. They were never replaced with light and shiny new ones. Whatever the US is manufacturing simply isn’t in demand, and even if there is such a high-demand product, such as the iPhone 4 or a computer operating system like Windows 7, it is manufactured, assembled  or massively multiplied outside of the United States, thus not resulting in jobs that provide many Americans with money to spend.

The simple truth is that the base of the US economy never really moved with the times, and neither politicians or voters cared. The best (or worst?) examples are the US automobile companies. Only after they were faced with annihilation and ultimately saved by the Obama administration did companies like General Motors and Ford realize that they had to change their ways. The car industry is now leaner than ever while innovation levels are top-notch. Those companies are willing to take risks again because they understand that they must be at the forefront, outpacing the competition.

The problem with the stimulus isn’t the stimulus. President Obama is probably right when he says that the country would have been worse off if it hadn’t been for the stimulus that kept jobs from being destroyed. But given the state of the US economy, which is still largely based on an outdated manufacturing model in many sectors, the stimulus didn’t do much else but keep large parts of a dying economic infrastructure from collapsing completely.

What is needed is for the US economy to partly reinvent itself, like the automobile companies did. Obama knows this. During the presidential election campaign of 2008 he repeatedly said that the United States should try to take the lead in certain economic sectors, such as inventing environmentally friendly products and new concepts for alternative energy sources. Obama let the world know that he understood that the US had to move into new and different directions in order to once again take the lead in new economic sectors, even creating them if necessary.

Economists like Meltzer criticize Obama for just keeping the patient alive. That’s the wrong line of attack. What Obama should be criticized for is that he isn’t teaching the patient how to get up and walk, even though he promised he would.

On the other hand: the guy has been in office for only 1,5 years while he’s had to deal with an economy where time has stood still for ages in some places. Cut him some slack. Aside from that, showing the economy ways to get its mojo back requires more government intervention, such as guidance, which is what many economists in the US (like Meltzer) don’t like.

But those are new rocks and hard places. Let’s give Obama a chance to deal with the current ones first.

|Six months after being swept into office on the crest of a popular wave of change, Barack Obama seems to have hit his first snag. Polls are showing that more Americans have doubts about his health care reform plans now than they did several months ago. Obama is not entirely to blame for that – select committees in the House of Representatives hammered out no fewer than three different proposals -  but it is up to Obama to keep the voters aboard. Especially in the so-called Blue Dog states.

|Obama is juggling several policy balls at once, and it must be driving his communications department mad. Either way, they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of getting more people aboard their bandwagon. On the contrary, doubts are seeping in.

There is a worrying trendline in recent polls, as can be seen in this collection of recent polls, gathered by the good folks at Pollster.com:

The bold digits in the column on the right shows that fewer people seem to support current plans for health care reform. Before we go on, rest assured: a majority of the US public still wants health care reform. But the aggregate above and other polls of the past month seem to reflect growing unease among questioned voters.

There’s too much confusion
So, if they support health care reform, then what is going on? One problem: confusion. Several committees in the House of Representatives drew up differing proposals. There are several grand schemes out there at the moment, and they seem to be somewhat dazzling ordinary news media consumers. That’s not their fault; the plans are confusing, and that’s not surprising when the draft proposals themselves are 1200 pages in size – each. Even seasoned journalists are having a hard time keeping tabs on what’s what.

Another problem seems to be Obama’s political saviness. Instead of using a top-down approach, like Bill and Hillary Clinton did in 1993-’94 and thus imposing his plan on Congress, Obama has decided to use a bottom-up approach: he’s allowing his Democratic friends and foes in Congress to clash over several proposals at once. The idea is that the Democrats will agree on a compromise, which Obama can then carbon-copy. That way, when push comes to shove at the end of this year, Congress will back the reform plan all the way. Why is this a problem? Because it allows for the confusion mentioned earlier – and thus an opening for the enemies of health care reform to try to change the narrative.

But the thing is: the Republicans aren’t really being listened to by the mainstream voters, and the health insurance lobby hasn’t even started fighting the plans yet – the lobby is waiting to see what the final plan will be. Instead, the voters’ doubts are being fed by crummy communications coming from the Democrats and the White House.

Because even though, as said, the Republicans are hardly being taken seriously by most voters, the Republicans are succeeding in one thing: pinning everything ‘bad’ about health care on the White House. Everytime the Blue Dog Democrats raise an objection to a reform proposal, Republicans seize on it by wrapping it around a brick and throwing it at the White House. That way, they’re trying to paint Obama as indecisive, and his policies confusing.

But voters don’t need Republicans to remind them of the complexity of the reform proposals. So far, the Obama administration has been trying to allay two fears among voters, them being:

1. That the quality of their existing health insurance would deteriorate
2. That the federal deficit would balloon.

Unfortunately, Team Obama – which includes his PR-department – has not succeeded in its effort. Instead of those fears diminishing, more people have actually started to fret.

It’s the Senate, stupid!
On another front, popular support for the current system (if you can call it that) is growing and solidifying, according to this poll. Yes, it’s Rasmussen which always has a slant to the right, but the development was to be expected: as the debate intensifies, more people turn to the subject of health care and start forming their opinions. As more people take a stance on their convictions, polls like these are likely to show a more crystallizing support for the current system, especially among those people who currently have affordable health insurance.

Team Obama will tell you that all this is no surprise, that they actually saw this coming, etcetera. Of course they’ll say that; downplaying is their job. But it is more than a safe bet that the numbers are actually worrying them.

Why? Because they may embolden first-term Blue Dog Democrats to suddenly turn against health care reform. These Democrats hail from states where the majority of voters usually votes for Republicans. Many of those voters were turned off by the deficit spending of George W. Bush, “one of their own”, and so many Republican voters stayed at home, allowing Democrats, independents and some angry Republicans to vote into office conservative Democrats – DINOs, “Democrats In Name Only”, the Democratic version of the reviled RINOs, “Republicans In Name Only”.

If  the idea takes hold among those voters that Obama’s final plan will indeed increase the federal deficit, even for a short period (as is expected), it will become very hard for Team Obama to convince the DINOs to vote in favour of his plan.

Whatever that may turn out to be – with a public option or without, covering all Americans or leaving out a few, a cooperative plan or not – one thing is sure: momentum is not on Team Obama’s side on this one. He’d better shift back into campaign mode and go on the stump.

In the debate about the reform of health care in the US, the central issue is how it is going to be paid for. The numbers mentioned are dazzling, and certainly to most US voters, who – according to polls – are getting a little nervous about how any health care reform is to be paid. Representatives, Senators and the President are locked in a political battle about the price tag(s). But on spending, there is one huge elephant in the room about whom nobody dares talk: defense spending, and cutting it to help finance health care reform.

The defense budget has mushroomed under the presidency of George W. Bush, making even his dad blush.  And so far, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have kept mum on what they actually want to do with the defense budget in the long run. Do they want to cut it, once US forces start leaving Iraq proper starting in 2011?

The Democrats and even some Republicans were willing to cut $1.75 billion initially slated for the F-22 Raptor advanced fighter program. This willingness to make such cuts could very well be a prelude to making deeper cuts at the behest of some of Obama’s ambitious reform plans, such as for health care.

And there is probably good reason for it. During the Clinton presidency of the late 1990s, the US military proved it was quite capable of carrying out its duties with a lot less money.

US Defense budget 2006-2010 (projected), in $ bln

Take 1998 and 1999, for instance. Defense spending had dropped to  $296.7 and $298.4 billion respectively. During the Bush presidency, defense spending ballooned to $536 billion in 2006 – and that is excluding the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the last year of Bush’s presidency, the defense budget went to a record $762 billion, including war expenditure. For 2009, the budget was set at $745 billion, and president Obama raised it again to $762 billion, to deal with the continued deployment in Iraq and the expansion of operations in Afghanistan.

From $298.4 billion to $762 billion ten years later – quite a difference. And what will happen to the budget once the US forces start moving out of Iraq? Unless a war breaks out somewhere else, logic would have it that the defense budget will be cut.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already cut several expensive, yet conventional warfare projects, of which some at its core still hailed from the drawing tables from the last years of the Cold War. It stands to reason more of such programs will be cut in the near future, with more money shifting to ‘irregular’ technologies, such as space surveillance, missile defence, intelligence gathering, and counter-terrorism operations.

But a lot of money will simply be cut from the defense budget altogether, and moved to other federal programs, such as health care. If Obama is able to move even 25% of the projected 2010 defense budget to health care in 2011 or 2012, it could help him and the Democrats in Congress to ease the financing problem that has started to worry so many Americans.

Of course, there’s a snag. Proposing deep cuts in the defense budget while US forces are deployed in a war zone – which will still be Afghanistan – is highly unpopular among voters. And like it or not, 2010 will see mid-term elections for Congress. This is probably the reason why Obama and the Democratic leadership have kept mum on the defense cuts option.

But this is a safe bet: come very soon, Obama will propose cuts to the defense budget – a budget that is not holy, and should not be holy.

In the midst of a heated political battle over health care, when important senators need to be persuaded to finally cross the Rubicon, when President Obama finally called an all-important presser on prime time, carried live by national networks, he decided to lose it and veer off course. In probably one of his most important press conferences as President, Obama let his emotions rip on the matter of the arrest of Skip Gates. The arresting police officers “acted stupidly”, Obama said.

No, Mr President. A presser on national TV means following the Communications 101 book, and in that first blaze of Presidential arrogance, you blew it. I sincerely hope you’re not surrounded by Yes Men, because if you are, I can promise you that you will be a One Term Anomaly.

Leave it to that lapdog of the British Conservatives and, had they been in the US, American Republicans to bash the bad old, looney left Europeans when it gets the opportunity. The Telegraph newspaper outdid itself once again. Columnist Janet Daley slaps ‘Old Europe’ on the wrist for sending Barack Obama back stateside, so called ‘empty handed’ after the G20 meeting. As is usual for any Telegraph columnist, Daley conveniently leaves out facts.

In her hitpiece, Daley indirectly accuses Europe of idly standing by while the US must virtually go it alone in Afghanistan.

Daley conveniently forgets that German troops have been in Afghanistan for years. They’ve paid in blood for their presence. Those filthy continental leftists even expanded their numbers and have committed themselves to staying even longer than they originally planned. If I were Obama, I’d be pissed off indeed!

About those despicable French? Same thing. Even though the French army is spread thin over Africa. Many a French soldier has been rotating tours in several countries in Africa, among them Chad and Ivory Coast. Not to mention the massive deployment in the Balkans.

In doing so, the French have not just paid billions of euros for their part in keeping the peace in Africa and southeastern Europe, they’ve paid in blood .

That’s right, BO: if I were you, I’d give it to those pesky garlic eaters!

Another fact, conventiently forgotten by Daley and her ilk, is that in 2003 the former US administration pulled out resources from Afghanistan, and redirected them to Iraq. The Dutch, the French, the Canadians, the Germans – everybody had to scramble to make up for the losses in resources. One of the arguments by those anachronistic silly continentals was that, by pulling resources out of Afghanistan, the Taliban would be emboldened.

So sending 17,000 US troops back into Afghanistan is de facto not the US “upping its presence” in that country, it is actually “bringing it back” to old, pre-2003 levels.

As for prices being paid, ask the Spanish how they feel about Daley’s column, post-Madrid bombings. Ask the family members of those killed in the London Bombings how they feel about ‘sending Obama back empty handed’. Ask the Dutch how they feel about their deployment to Iraq.

As for the G20 and economics, the US simply doesn’t have the budget expenditure on benefits programs those odd Yuropeans have. Whether Paul Krugman likes it or not, the Europeans are indeed headed into huge budget deficits, spending billions upon billions on unemployment benefits and welfare programs, which are being hit by a tidal wave of entitled dependents due to the bad economy.

Add up the expenditure of the US administration on battling the crisis and likewise for the Europeans, compare those amounts to the relative size of their respective economies, and one will see that – in relative terms – the continentals are actually throwing a lot of money at the crisis.

Which is something they can ill afford. Unlike the US, Europe is headed towards a cataclysmic event for which the European governments should be saving money, not spend it. The problem lies in demography. Within the next 20 years, nearly half of the population in Western European nations will be retiring — usually on government-sponsored pensions. See this OECD report for some background and projections on GDP-growth for the US, Japan, the Euro area, and Germany, the UK and France. Chilling stuff, I can promise you.

In fact, some European countries are in more trouble than even the US. Yes, imagine that! Credit rating agency Moody’s recently downgraded Ireland’s state bonds, after it had done the same thing to Spain’s state bonds. Portugal, Italy and Greece could be next. (Italy’s national debt exceeds its gross national product – they seem to have no leverage left at all for any stimulus. Or maybe they could ask uncle Giovanni down in Corleone for some quick cash.)

The US has the luxury that it can actually borrow money, as its credit rating is still AAA+. Not so for some European countries. And did I mention that much of ‘New Europe’ Daley’s on about, namely the Eastern European countries, are either already sucking on the emergency credit funds of the IMF, or are getting ready to do so?

Mrs Daley would do well to focus on the United Kingdom, where cutting the VAT by 2 percent has done exactly NIL for the economy. 22 billion pounds have disappeared into thin air, and it has brought the British naught, while the economic, er, ‘plans’ Ms Daley’s favourite Tory party has brought forward are nothing short of ‘disastrous’. Where Mr Obama at least wants to take a step forward in making the US a smart economy, the favourite party of Mrs Daley wants the UK to become a concrete jungle of which Grover Norquist and Milton Friedman would be proud.

Hillary Clinton should not become Obama’s
Secretary of State, but should remain in the Senate instead, working to preserve unity among Democrats.

Having her on board, working in the Senate to clear the health care initiative, is of far more importance than having her out of the country all the time — regardless of how politically expedient it would be for Barack Obama to have her out of his way.

When the new Congress convenes, Democrats will have a strong majority in both chambers. Not the filibuster-breaking majority they wanted, but still. However, the mere fact that the Democrats will not have such a majority, means that they will still have to make deals with some Republican members of Congress in order to get proposals passed. In that reality, it would be a smart move to have Reid work the Democrats on the left while Clinton works the Democrat ‘Blue Dogs’ and the moderate Republicans. (Okay, the few moderate Republicans that still remain after ‘Bloody Tuesday’ of last November 4.)

Of course, there will be times when Clinton will want to make a fist and celebrate her own, possibly vengeful victories over the Obama White House. So be it; that’s what you get when you essentially copy the old Roman ways of governance. You get a rowdy Senate, with senior Senators who see themselves as the Saviours of the Nation. Again, so be it. Obama will have to deal with it and he probably can, thanks to people like Rahm Emanuel.

The smart old lion of the Democrats, Ted Kennedy, probably sees things the same way and has therefore undercut the entire Secretary of State-game for Obama by publicly asking Clinton to lead the health insurance initiative.

By doing so publicly, Hillary can’t turn the offer down; thanks to her hard work trying to get her own failed health care initiative through Congress back in 1993, turning down Kennedy’s request would be equivalent to her erasing part of her legacy.

And if there is one thing the Clintons hold dear, it is their legacy.

Let there be no doubt that on November 4, 2008, America changed. Let there be no doubt that the long march, started a woman on a bus, finally reached the finish line.

Let there be no doubt that apathy because of the colour of your skin, or because of where you’re from, is no longer an option. Let there be no doubt: all that has changed with Barack Obama’s election.
Let there also be no doubt that, when Obama said that “a new dawn of American leadership is at hand” in his victory speech, the world has changed in the past 8 years. The United States of America is no longer the one superpower that remained after the fall of the Soviet Union. If the current crisis has shown Americans one thing, it should be the realization that Ameríca’s economy is intertwined with the rest of the world, that it is no longer the undisputed leader that stands alone on a mountain top. And let there be no doubt that, indeed, political power no longer grows out of the barrel of a gun.

But let there also be no doubt: the world will never be the same again. Other players have entered the top of the game, thanks to – ironically – the lack of leadership displayed by the US during the past 8 years. To assume that America can regain its position of world leadership of yore, is a fantasy. Instead, America must work together with other nations, the other leaders that rose when America turned its back on the world for eight long years.

Let there be no doubt that America must again learn what responsibility is, and that America must show that responsibility. Barack Obama said he wants to “turn the page”. That is a welcome goal. But he mustn’t only turn the page on 8 years of George W. Bush, he must also turn the page on Bill Clinton, and all presidents before him.

Let America show that it is willing to change. Ratify the follow-up to the Kyoto Treaty, which neither George W. Bush nor Bill Clinton wanted. Sign and ratify the moratorium on land mines, on chemical weapons, on biological weapons, on the development of new nuclear weapons.

Let there be no doubt that America must walk the talk.

Lecture other countries about their ethical behaviour by improving America’s own ethical behaviour. Lecture by action, heal the damage done. When America demands of nations that they agree to stop producing chemical weapons and must allow international inspections for verification, America must allow those same inspectors to check American factories. When America demands of European countries that they abolish farm subsidies, let America abolish its own.

Support the International Crimes Tribunal. Repeal the ‘The Hague invasion act’. Become a nation among nations. Understand that there is not just one country on this planet, but that there is only one planet. And make other countries understand this, too. Again, by actions, not by lecturing.

“The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from our ideals”, Obama said. How I wish that were true.

The true strength of nations comes from their willingness to work together, by carefully appropriating the might of their arms and the scales of their wealth, not as goals unto themselves, but as tools with which to promote shared ideals.