Will Obama keep security pledges?

Barack Obama's priority is to mend the US economy, but if the president-elect hoped to devote all his attention to that task he is already disappointed.

Other issues are muscling in. Israel's assault on Gaza will be an early test for his foreign policy team, led by Hillary Clinton. His administration's stance on Palestine and Israel - whatever this proves to be - will also intersect with its approach to security and counter-terrorism.

These issues are connected because Obama is a soft-power enthusiast. Especially in its first term, the administration of George W. Bush scorned the good opinion of other nations. Obama sees US standing abroad as a priceless asset and he wants it back.

He wants America to command respect so that its friends will be better allies and its enemies will lose support. This, he believes, will be at least as productive as knocking jihadists on the head.

On Gaza, there will be the usual calls for restraint and expressions of US solidarity with Israel - but, with a more attentive eye on European and Arab opinion, the new administration is likely to voice support for the US's traditional ally that is a little less unconditional than Bush's. Whether this altered tone is seen as change or continuity will be a matter of taste, although for a while Obama will be given the benefit of the doubt. In any case, the US can do only so much to push the Israelis and Palestinians towards peace: in the end, the parties themselves have to settle that conflict.

Guantanamo Bay

When it comes to security and counter-terrorism, however, Obama's supporters at home and abroad will hold him accountable, and the president-elect has made some bold promises. He has pledged more than once to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay without delay. He and his advisors have attacked it as unlawful and disreputable. They have said it has poisoned world opinion against the US and inflamed Muslim rage, putting the country at greater risk of a terrorist attack.

The Obama team is promising a clean break with the Bush administration on other aspects of security and counter-terrorism policy as well - on methods of interrogation and on wire-tapping and other forms of surveillance. As with Guantanamo, according to the Obama team, it is a matter of doing what is right, abiding by American traditions of civil liberty and paying (as the Declaration of Independence puts it) "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind". But it may be as difficult to make a clean break with the Bush administration's policies in these areas as it will be on Israel-Palestine.

Most of the 800 or so prisoners sent to Guantanamo have since been released or transferred. Of the roughly 250 who remain, some could plausibly face trial, some have been cleared for release or transfer but have nowhere to go (often because of fears of mistreatment if they are sent home) and some are seen as too dangerous to release, yet are probably unprosecutable for lack of evidence that an ordinary civilian or military court would admit.

Many Democrats, and most foreigners, would urge that all the remaining detainees should be either tried or released. That would be a brave step for Obama to take. If a detainee released on his watch despite being regarded as dangerous were implicated in a future attack on the US - in another September 11, or worse - the country would not forgive him. He is likely to want to keep some of the inmates in preventive detention.

He can surely reduce the number; he can devise a process that gives the remaining prisoners better opportunities to challenge the evidence against them; and (Congress and the courts permitting) he can put them in US prisons rather than holding them in Cuba in a way that boasts: "We are evading the law."

In short, he can keep his promise to close Guantanamo. It is doubtful, though, that these improvements would satisfy domestic and foreign civil libertarians, for whom a single detainee held indefinitely without trial violates an inviolable principle.

Detention policy

Policy on detention turns on whether suspected terrorists and "enemy combatants" must be treated either as criminals or prisoners of war - and nothing else. International law has tended in that direction, along with international opinion.

Much the same question arises over interrogation and surveillance. Are terrorists just criminals? Is the "war on terror" a misconception? Many of Obama's supporters say "Yes". He will find it difficult to do more than meet them halfway. US laws on interrogation of terrorist suspects certainly need to be clarified so that the ban on torture is affirmed and the definition of that term is not so narrowly construed that it excludes vile practices such as waterboarding. But will terrorist suspects be given the same rights to gentle handling (including the right to silence) as ordinary criminal suspects? If Obama takes the threat of another September 11 seriously, I doubt it.

As for surveillance, existing US laws were framed to deal with ordinary criminals and spies. Investigators had to establish "probable cause" and obtain warrants. The Bush administration caused outrage by skirting the law and undertaking warrantless surveillance of some types of cross-border communication. The Bush administration left US security and counter-terrorism laws in a mess. Putting them right will tax Obama's ingenuity and cost him some friends.

- Financial Times