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It is human nature for disadvantaged people to hate anybody with absolute power or unlimited wealth. America has both absolute power and unlimited wealth. It may, however, be the U.S.’s foreign policy and muscle flexing which attract the wrath, rather than its wealth or power per se.
The Current Discussion: The G-8 summit is Bush's last hurrah as a world leader. What's one thing he can do to strengthen his legacy?
If there is one thing that President Bush can achieve in the dying days of his presidency, it should involve Africa. Everything else seems to be complex and too messed up to even think of fixing in the time available. Regarding the Arab-Israeli issue, it is obvious that Bush cannot undo in six months a problem that is sixty years old. He must have encountered the insurmountable walls of the Middle East peace during his two-term presidency. His trusted State Secretary’s frequent visits and proverbial skills couldn’t put the Middle East’s Humpty Dumpty together again.
As the free market economy makes a free fall, all kinds of prescriptions will come to mind, including socialism. A Somali proverb says: "Nin buka boql u talisay" (a sick man gets 100 advisers). Socialist-minded gurus and those who feel left behind by capitalism's unprecedented generation of wealth may need to shout "gotcha," but one thing that could be unanimously agreed by at least uninitiated armchair observers like me is that capitalism in its current free reign and globalized fit for all structure has run its course. Just like we need and preach biodiversity in the field of ecology we need eco-diversity in the economic world.
The Current Discussion: Will the U.S. financial crisis lead to an erosion of U.S. influence comparable to the Iraq war?
There is no doubt that this financial meltdown marks a defining moment for America's global influence. My guess is that America will weather this crisis, partly due to the government rescue plan and partly due to the ingenuity of the American people. But it is also my guess that the rest of the world may not be ready to undergo the same fear again and may opt to build shock absorbers against any similar future eventualities.
With the election of Barack Obama, America has set the record straight. The American people have said it loud and clear that they want a change of direction. They believed and supported Obamaʼs message of change. The American people have delivered and it is now Obamaʼs turn to deliver. He has to show that he can walk the walk; that he is not only a man of words but a man of action as well.
The biggest foreign policy mistake that Barack Obama could make during his honeymoon will be to follow the same political discourse of the Bush administration. Bush was plagued with language disaster. One of his first slips of the tongue was describing the war on terror as a crusade. This was a loaded word that inadvertently endorsed Samuel Huntington's ill-conceived clash of civilizations and invoked a legacy of horrors in the Muslim world.
Lifting the Cuban travel ban is a commendable step but as I 'advised' President Obama in an earlier post, it's not enough. As Fidel Castro said, Cuba needs more than charity. Lifting the travel ban will no doubt benefit Cuban exiles and their families back home but it would leave the rest of the Cuban people out in the cold.
One can only admire the positive steps that the Obama administration has taken thus far in improving America's image and restoring its status as a responsible global leader. But one wonders why, if Obama's administration can extend a hand in peace to countries that are far and distant, why can't it do a little more for its small neighbor?
Cuba has a highly educated workforce and could prosper with full bilateral ties to America. That's not much to ask from a neighbor that, despite the current economic crisis, often squanders its money on the world's most hopeless areas.
By lifting the travel ban on Cuba, the Obama administration has taken a step in the right direction. But why offer the cake half-baked when they can deliver it fully baked?
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