02. Apr, 2010
Aijaz Zaka Syed
April 2, 2010What’s that Abba song again? The winner takes it all; the winner takes it all…The loser standing small
These days the 1980s classic seems to constantly play in my mind as I watch Barack Obama knock down his adversaries with a winning smile on his face.
Having been elected amid unprecedented euphoria, Obama became a victim of his own gravitas and success. After the initial, lusty celebrations by his fans at home and around the world, the disenchantment with the first black man in the White House had been equally swift and breathtaking. His popularity ratings began dipping faster than you could say ‘Change We Can.’
Even the most diehard supporters of the president began wondering if it was all talk and no substance behind that magical smile. It looked as though everything was finished and Obama’s dream presidency had crashed right after the take off. The man in the thick of it though never seemed to doubt himself, never taking his eyes off the ball. And he struck even as his detractors were busy writing his obit. This is perhaps what Dryden had in mind when he warned, ‘Beware of the fury of a patient man.’
When you are under siege and things are all falling around you, it’s amazing what one decisive victory could do to restore the world’s confidence – and your own trust – in yourself. All the pompous pundits who’d skewered Obama all year around are now rushing to crown him as the greatest president since Teddy Roosevelt. It seems nothing indeed succeeds like success. This most unlikeliest of all presidents has many firsts to his credit, the most significant of them being his own impossible election. But by pushing through the long needed health care reforms in the face of great adversity helping tens of millions of poor Americans, he has accomplished something that eluded numerous of his formidable predecessors including Roosevelt and Bill Clinton.
And this after just 14 months in office. Around the time US lawmakers were voting on health care bill, Obama quietly scored another victory, this time on foreign front, by clinching a sweeping nuclear disarmament deal with Russia. The treaty will substantially cuts down on the deadly arsenal accumulated during the Cold war. Again an accomplishment that evaded many of his predecessors. “Yes we did, yes we did, yes we did!” he shouted back to the cheering crowds in Iowa, 1,000 kiolometres from Washington DC where he had vanquished his once invincible rival Hillary Clinton in the race for White House. With his jacket cast off and the pristine white shirt sleeves folded, the prophet of hope that the world had fallen in love with after long years of beating around the Bush was back with a bang.
But can our hero repeat the success story over the Middle East? Every US and Western leader over the past half a century or so has paid lip service to the Middle East peace, dialogue, two-state solution and what not. Only to set new records of prostrating before Israel even as it builds ever new monuments to its delusions of grandeur over the Palestinian bodies and towns.
At last though the US establishment and official Washington appear to be waking up to the reality we in the Middle East have been trying to highlight and underscore all these years. Last week, top US commander General David Petraeus did the unthinkable by arguing before the Senate that an early resolution of the Palestine question was key to winning America’s ‘war on terror’.
The architect of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan established a clear link between the Israeli persecution of Palestinians and the anti-US and anti-Western sentiment in the Arab and Muslim world: “The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, [because of] a perception of US favouritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the region and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world,” Gen Petraeus warned the Senate.
No US leader or General has ever come this close to holding a mirror to the so-called ‘special relationship’. Ground has shifted in Washington and Israel would ignore the writing on the wall at its own peril. More and more Americans, including mainstream US media, are beginning to realise that the ‘special relationship’ with Israel has become a millstone and albatross around America’s neck and is dragging it down the abyss.
The continuing persecution and dispossession of Palestinian people, fueling anger fury across the Muslim world, not weapons of mass destruction, has emerged as the “clear and present danger” to the US and its other Western allies. President Obama appears to be increasingly conscious of this fact and clearly wants to act before it’s too late. It’s suggested that Gen Petraeus’ Senate testimony and comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the same vein were in response to orders from the commander-in-chief himself.
If Israel’s Netanyahu thought he could get away with snubbing Obama on the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land stolen in 1967, he was grievously mistaken. The pro-Israel US media has recounted with horror how Obama dropped the Israeli leader from Michelle’s dinner invitation at White House after he thundered to cheap cheers at the AIPAC conference in Washington that Obama or no Obama Israel would continue to build the settlements in Jerusalem. “Let me know if there’s anything new,” Obama is reported to have said after curtly cutting short Netanyahu’s attempts to “explain” the settlements with the help of a flow chart. Then the President brusquely walked out of the meeting, leaving Netanyahu and his aides speechless – and their mouths wide open!
Telling Israel that ‘enough is enough’ and it’s time to behave is something that no US leader has ever done before. As Andrew Sullivan says in the Sunday Times, Obama has torn apart Israel’s carte blanche – or its license to kill – to do anything and get away with it all these years. Commenting on Obama’s snub to Netanyahu, the New York Times’ Jewish columnist Roger Cohen wrote: “This man is no softie. He’s a politician tough enough to watch his rivals auto-destruct on his cool.” And I so hope Obama will eventually persuade Israel’s intransigent leaders to ‘self-destruct.’ This unusual president with an extraordinary background has many firsts to his credit. However, Obama’s real test lies in taming the monster that the US and other Western powers created and unleashed on the Middle East. Can he do it? I would like to think so. This US leader has both the courage of conviction and honesty of intention. More important, he has the persistence of purpose. As Sullivan says, the key thing to understand about Obama is his persistence.
Obama cannot do it alone though. He needs the active support of other world powers and people everywhere who believe in a just world. Global opinion has shifted our way. For the first time, a US president appears willing and ready to deliver peace in the Middle East. But are the Arabs ready? They must not squander this historic opportunity with their petty squabbles. They must speak in one voice and act for the sake of Palestinians and for their own sake. This is the Change We Can! Go ahead, Obama, you can do it. God be with you!
Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times. Write to him at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com
Uprooted Palestinian
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