WHAT’S it about US presidential polls that one finds so fascinating? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that America is the sole superpower with military might and overarching political and economic clout never enjoyed by any empire in history. Even Britain which famously ruled the waves until the last century didn’t enjoy such unbridled and overwhelming power.
Today, the US military presence is at its strongest, even stronger than it had ever been at the height of the Cold War. No part of the planet is free of US military bases and no country can dare to challenge Uncle Sam’s supremacy. And how can one ignore the total cultural, ideological and intellectual hegemony of the empire thanks to Hollywood, US media giants and brands and lifestyle statements like KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks and the ubiquitous denim?
It’s even more so on the technology front with behemoths like Microsoft, IBM, Apple and Google ruling the roost, not to mention Facebook, Youtube and Twitter etc. Like it or not, America rules the world like no empire ever has. And it seems it’s going to for some time to come notwithstanding the amazing ascent of China and other recent arrivals. No wonder the rest of the world finds itself so engrossed in the complex process of the US polls. In sports parlance, it’s like the World Cup of elections although in terms of sheer numbers and diversity nothing beats India.
The race for the White House is a different ballgame altogether. Besides consummate political and communication skills, enough financial resources and loads of gravitas, candidates have to be really tenacious and lucky to get to the White House. No wonder few of them survive beyond the primaries.
And even when they clinch the party nomination, it’s a long and treacherous road to the most powerful office on the planet. In the end the best man doesn’t always win. Remember the winters of 2000 and 2004? A bumbling Bush managed to beat the odds against far superior and capable men belying conventional wisdom that the voters know best.
Nevertheless, the whole process is so elaborate that it generally ensures that at the end of the day only the toughest, not necessarily the best, remain standing. Under perpetual media glare and public scrutiny for months, many a clay feet are exposed along the way, swiftly ending promising careers like that of John Edwards.
Doubtless the highlight of the race remains the verbal duel between the candidates in final weeks. So not surprisingly the first encounter between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney last week was avidly watched around the world despite it being an inconvenient hour for the rest of the world. And if post debate polls are to be believed, Romney came out tops to everyone’s surprise, largely by confronting the incumbent over the economy and unemployment although much of the current mess is a gift of the Bush years and wars. Obama remained cool and composed throughout, perhaps a tad too composed for his supporters’ comfort.
He kept on smiling and scribbling and consulting his notes like a Harvard professor that he once was while Romney tore into him. Maybe the incumbent deliberately refused to play Romney’s game, turning it into a bitter white-versus-black duel in a country where black authority figures are still a rarity. Indeed, this was his approach in tackling his adversaries Hillary Clinton and later John McCain in the last race.
But the president cannot remain in his comfort zone if he is to retain the White House. Romney is decisively closing the gap and not many days are left before the day of the reckoning. Indeed, within hours of the debate Obama had lost his clear lead over an opponent who has long faced a credibility problem in opinion polls. Which says something about the fickle nature of the electorate. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, as H.L. Mencken put it.
As in 2008, Obama remains far more popular abroad than at home. In fact, no US president has ever generated the kind of global euphoria and adulation as Obama did, including in the Muslim world.
Last time around, eminent newspapers across the Atlantic like the Guardian, Financial Times and Economist went out of their way to urge US voters to back the first black man for White House raising eyebrows in the land of the free. It was like a global election for global leadership — which in many ways it is — with the whole world pining for the “change-we-can.” After eight years of the shock and awe of the Bush presidency, Obama looked like a true messiah come to save the world.
No wonder the dismay over Obama’s lackluster performance during the past four years has been so complete for his legion of supporters and admirers. After a promising start and offering a “new way forward” with the Muslim world with which America had been at war under the neocons, Obama has more or less followed the same policies that he had opposed as the Illinois senator.
True, he has managed to end the war in Iraq and bring the bulk of American troops home. Come 2014, the Americans will also start retreating from Afghanistan. However, America’s war despite its catastrophic consequences for everyone concerned continues unabated at other levels even as the mess in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan spills over across the region. Gulags like Gitmo continue to exist.
While cutting down on the US troop presence in Muslim countries, Obama has stepped up indiscriminate airstrikes and use of drones to avoid American.
The use of drone as the weapon of choice has multiplied many times over under this Nobel president inflaming public opinion in Pakistan and across Muslim lands. Except for some militants, majority of the victims amongst the lot of more than 2,000 killed so far have been innocent civilians. The outpouring of popular anger seen this week at the protest march led by Imran Khan is only a tip of the iceberg.
On the Middle East front too, which remains at the heart of Islam-West tensions and is responsible for the rise of extremist fringe like Al-Qaeda, Obama has proved a crushing disappointment. He won hearts and minds around the world by launching his historic Middle East peace initiative under George Mitchell within a week of taking office. And who could forget those sublime, stirring speeches in Ankara and Cairo, generating fervent hopes and expectations in the Middle East and across the globe? It was chiefly because of that initiative that the Nobel wise men in Oslo picked him up for the world’s highest honor, now it seems, prematurely and undeservedly. However, faced with Israel’s characteristic intransigence, obfuscation and threats, he soon lost all interest in the peace that he had vowed to ‘impose’ on the Middle East, if necessary. He gave up, just as many of his predecessors had done in the face of similar Israeli tactics.
Still, it would be a shame if American voters dump him for his pretentious challenger. Even today despite Obama’s imperfect report card, it’s still a no brainer given the qualities, backgrounds and most importantly the worldviews of the two candidates.
With Obama, you still have got some hope that he might deliver on his promises in his second term without worrying about consequences and various lobbies and special interests like AIPAC.
With Romney though, you can be almost certain of the return of the insanity that characterized the last Republican presidency. And that Iran strike that Israel has been fantasizing about all these years could after all be a reality, destroying another Muslim country and turning the world upside down.
— Aijaz Z. Syed is a Gulf based commentator.