Commentary
Barack Obama’s “Change” – More of the Same
Barack Obama has spent the past two years campaigning for the
Democratic nomination for president of the United States on a platform of
“change”. He made a big deal about being one of the few senators to vote
against the Bush invasion of Iraq and promised to bring a new approach to U.S.
foreign policy. His followers pointed to Hillary Clinton’s hawkish statements
on Iran to underline the differences between Obama
and her.
However, no sooner had Obama wrapped up the Democratic nomination than he joined
Clinton and Republican nominee John McCain in sabre-rattling
against Iran. Addressing the powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on June 4 Obama
assured the audience that Israel could count on his full support and that he
would do anything in his power to prevent Iran from “gaining nuclear
capability”. He offered his unconditional support for “Israel’s right to defend
itself” by any means necessary and demanded that Iran “abandon
its dangerous nuclear program, support for terrorism and threats to Israel”. Iran currently has no nuclear weapons and has
declared repeatedly that it has no intention of developing them. Israel, on the
other hand, is reported to possess 150 nuclear warheads and has repeatedly
threatened to use them against its neighbours if it
sees fit.
In his speech, Obama
attempted to position himself as a greater defender of Israel than George Bush,
criticizing the Bush administration for supporting open, democratic elections
in Gaza which were won by Hamas. Obama attacked
Hamas, stating that he would never “negotiate with terrorists”. He also
supported Israel’s pre-emptive bombing last year of a Syrian military
installation which the U.S. and Israel claimed was a nuclear installation, a
claim refuted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
On May 23 Obama
delivered a speech to the Cuban National Foundation, an organization of Cuban
émigrés which has funded hundreds of terrorist attacks against Cuba over the
past 48 years. Obama told that audience. “Throughout
my entire life, there has been injustice and repression in Cuba. Never, in my
lifetime, have the people of Cuba known freedom. Never, in the lives of two
generations of Cubans, have the people of Cuba known democracy ... I won’t
stand for this injustice ... I will maintain the embargo.”
Over the past half century or so U.S.
there have been two pillars of U.S. foreign policy – unconditional support for
Israel and unconditional opposition to Cuba. Barack Obama has now declared himself fully in line with the past
policy on both accounts. So precisely what new approach to U.S. foreign policy
is Obama proposing?
There are apologists for Obama who claim that he is simply playing to the Jewish and
Cuban vote in Florida in order to get elected, after which he will follow his
own course. At best this smacks of rank opportunism. If he would tell the
Jewish and Cuban lobbies what they want to hear just to get their votes, is it
not likely that he is also telling his “core constituents” – young people and
blacks – what they want to hear just to get their votes?
Obama has been
endorsed by a significant section of the U.S. anti-war movement because he claims
to differ with the Bush administration over the war in Iraq. Indeed, in 2002 he
spoke passionately against invading Iraq, but, at the same time, he fully
supported the Bush administration’s invasion of Afghanistan. He is still
advocating a “withdrawal” of U.S. troops from Iraq in order to concentrate on
the war in Afghanistan. There are many in both the Democratic and Republican
parties who agree with him, but this position can hardly be called a “new
approach” to U.S. foreign policy. Recently, Obama
declared that he will visit Iraq this summer to see for himself what is
happening there. Following that visit, will he declare that he has changed his
mind about Iraq because that is what the voters in the swing states want to
hear? Or will he ramp up the rhetoric against Iran’s supposed supplying of
Iraqi “terrorists” with weapons, because that is what the Israeli’s and their
American lobbyists want to hear? Perhaps he will do both.
When most people talk about “change” and
“new approaches”, they are talking about a break with the past. For Barack Obama it appears to mean
that he will tell the voters whatever they want to hear and then do whatever
the most powerful monopolies tell him to do once he is elected. It can be
argued that this is merely what every previous U.S. presidential candidate has
done before him, but, regardless, it cannot be argued that Obama
represents any kind of change, let alone fundamental change, in American
politics.