Obama lacks substance

When Americans elected Barack Obama as president of their country, enthusiasm took over the minds of those who were inspired by the lawyer's promises of change and a march towards a better world behind the slogan 'yes we can'.

He looked like the right man at the right time, with the financial crisis battering the United States and Americans' trust in their homeland at stake.

It seemed the obvious thing to do to allow the charismatic politician to take centre stage. People in the US and all over the world hailed his victory, hoping he would somehow spread justice, peace and fraternity.

This peculiar optimism is explained in part by the desire to throw off the legacy of former president George W. Bush, which was marked by wars and natural disasters.

But it took no more than two-and-a-half months to realise that we had all bought into the biggest con job pulled off in Washington since the American Civil War. By then, it seemed abundantly clear that Obama was drowning in dangerous political blunders resulting from what some describe as an ideological and class revenge on Republicans and conservatives.

Others say that he buried himself in the mire of unrealistic promises made during his campaign.

Many were shocked and outraged upon hearing an American president announce with absolute utopian idealism that he dreams of a nuclear-free world. In the Kremlin, meanwhile, where nobody knows who is really in charge, there were no doubt broad smiles, which grew even broader when Obama signed a declaration with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev committing to talks on reducing their countries' nuclear arsenals.

Obama waited to make this announcement in Europe, which years ago had witnessed the beginning of the American era and the fall of Communism. It was a controversial speech by Obama at a time when nuclear powers such as China and Russia are questioning America's leadership, and other extremist ideological regimes with nuclear appetites pose a strategic threat to the geopolitical influence of the US on the Korean Peninsula and in the Middle East.

This American president sent the wrong message at the wrong time to Iran with his unprecedented recorded address to its people and the brief encounter between Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at Pakistan Donors' Conference in Tokyo. In return for his diplomacy, Obama received only a temporary moratorium on Tehran's threats to wipe Israel off the map, an even more resolute Iranian stand on carrying out uranium enrichment, and vague hints that the country would contribute to bringing stability to Iraq and Afghanistan.

North Korea, too, made the most of this American administration's naive diplomacy. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who seems to be under Obama's spell, said in an interview recently that there is not much the US can do to prevent Pyongyang from launching a long-range missile capable of reaching American territories - effectively giving the totalitarian regime the green light to proceed.

Washington subsequently found itself in an embarrassing situation with the United Nations Security Council in trying to adopt a resolution condemning the Korean test. In the end, there was only a compromised statement. Ironically, it was Obama himself who accused Bush of isolating and weakening the country in the international arena by clashing with the UN.

It seems then, that we have witnessed no substantial changes in US policies on Iran or North Korea. It is essential for Washington to radically change its position on rogue states before thinking of reaching out to them. Many fear a new epoch of war and crisis if Obama continues to rely on his rising popularity rather than substantial foreign policies. The US president's gung-ho, 'yes we can' approach threatens to open a new Pandora's box.

Rauf Baker is a Dubai-based journalist who specialises in Eastern European Affairs.