JOHN MARONE, KYIV
BARACK OBAMA - KING FOR A DAY
The buzz over the election of America's first black president, Barack Obama, continues unabated. Fresh faced, eloquent and from a modest background, his 'story' sells well just about everywhere. But being liked so much for doing so little is a little like being king for a day, secretly hoping that the reality of tomorrow never has to come. Americans are keen on fairy-tale success stories such as Mr. Obama's. The people of less stable nations, including Ukraine, have a more cynical experience with leaders who seem to walk on water. After all, less than four years ago, Ukraine had its own international celebrity president, whose popularity has since undergone a serious deflation, along with much of the country's hopes for reform from the 2004 Orange Revolution. Significantly, if Mr. Obama also turns out to be more image than substance, Ukrainians may suffer an even greater disappointment than the Americans who elected him.
In a frightening tribute to the power of the American media machine, Mr. Obama is currently enjoying a status beyond the reach of most modern politicians. He is soon to take the reigns of the most powerful country in the world, the singular, undisputed global superpower. Yet, unlike his white Anglo-Saxon predecessors, Mr. Obama is at least temporarily immune to the domestic and international resentment that invariably comes with his new job.
You can't touch Obama at home. It's as if Americans don't want to believe that he is anything but their saviour. Real-time financial meltdown, a growing list of international threats on the horizon and the long-time problems of the country's education and health systems that won't go away ... No worries, Obama will take care of it!
Even the Republican team that he defeated has turned inward against itself in a nasty and pointless blame game. The lame duck George W. Bush isn't making a peep, as if he were planning to exit the White House through the back door.
And it's precisely the exit of Mr. Bush, warmonger, tree killer and bubba wannabe that he is, that has endeared Mr. Obama to the other half of the Western world, or EU. Don't expect someone of Kenyan descent to take control of France, the UK or Germany any time soon. However, it's nice to applaud such an upset in America.
Barry Obama, of course, won the presidency fair and square. He ran a tough campaign, first against American Medusa Hillary Clinton and then the passionate but unfortunately erratic great white hope, John McCain. The first-term senator also outspent his opponent three to one, raising the question of just where Obama’s support actually came from. Hopeful blacks and teary-eyed teenagers don't come up with that kind of money.
And when those camera-shy financial backers do make themselves known, the star will start dropping to earth. Thereafter, the sensation-seeking media will begin tearing apart the sacred cow that they have nurtured over the past year. But the nasty part will come from all those sincere supporters who don't get the posts they were aiming for. The Democratic backstabbing of the Clinton years could pale by comparison.
For all George W's popularity problems (many of which were well deserved), the man had more to fall back on than public support. It was always clear who supported the prep-turned Texan, but Americans accepted him (at the polls twice) as somehow preferable to his presidential opponents.
Obama's is a different 'story' altogether. He is a king of the people, without any royal lineage. His unorthodox background was important to his election victory not just because it sold well to everyday voters, but because it would continue to make him vulnerably compliant to his more important supporters in the party and on Wall Street.
Much of Obama's popularity abroad is of the same kind. We have all heard of his followers in Kenya, some of whom have gone so far as to name their newborn children after the president-elect and his wife. Then there was the pat on the back from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who referred to Mr. Obama as, "The beginning of victory for black people." Although Mr. Gaddafi has improved his image in the West immensely from the days when he was accused of ordering the shoot-down of a passenger liner over Scotland in the 1980's, Obama is probably more concerned with courting other world leaders.
The president-elect's limited experience in foreign policy (and Washington D.C. for that matter) was, after all, one of the weak points exploited by his opponents during the election battle. And, unfortunately for America as well as other countries, the foreign policy problems on the table these days are not going to resolve themselves.
Just like Obama's opponents in Washington, America's competitors on the world stage will quickly act to exploit any weakness in the new president's defenses. The country that is likely to lead the assault on the lofty hill that Obama is standing is Russia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hasn't wasted any time, announcing last week that Moscow would install a missile system in Russia's Central European enclave of Kaliningrad. The latest in a series of attempts to force Washington to give up its plans to install a US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, the move demonstrates the kind of opposition that Obama can expect from other foreign adversaries.
If Obama is really opposed to the bellicose policies of the Bush administration, he should be willing to back track on a few of them, including speeding up the troop withdrawal from Iraq – the thinking seems to be. However, by doing so, the new president would simultaneously make his country look weak. So-called rogue states like Iran and N. Korea will gnaw at America's heels while regional giants such as China and Russia crowd the superpower out of their backyards.
The backyard that Russia wants back is Ukraine and Georgia. The former remains bogged down in endless political chaos, addicted to cheap gas and highly uncertain of its European future. The latter is already being occupied by Russian troops. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili tried to fashion himself as David against the Russian Goliath during last summer's brief war, but the little Western support he is receiving from America could get smaller under Obama. More recently, Saakashvili's political opponents at home staged a five thousand strong protest rally in the capital of Tbilisi, a sharp contrast to the crowds the Georgian president was able to gather to defy Moscow’s military advances in August.
Pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has also been a faithful friend of America, unflinchingly supporting NATO membership and Western-style reforms. It was the hope of joining Europe that motivated Ukrainians to support Yushchenko's fight for the presidency during the country's 2004 revolution. Like Obama now, Yushchenko promised his countrymen change, with little more than faith to back it up. Four years later, the fledgling country's independence looks more precarious than ever. Both men have been hailed as heroes at home and abroad. Now, Yushchenko's pro-Western policies look about as hopeful as his floundering political career.
As for Obama's chances for success, maybe the words of another king for a day from the recent past best sum them up. In an interview to journalists following the US elections, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said: Time will tell what the new administration in the US will do. The important thing is that Obama came to power on a wave of serious public support that was connected to his intentions to carry out serious change in the country. He cannot get away from that".
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
November 10, 2008
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