Ahmednasir Abdulahi

When Barrack Obama is sworn with the Lincoln Bible in his hand on Tuesday, he will make both profound and dramatic history. That ceremony will bring to an end the phase of symbolism and history making. He will immediately thereafter start a journey in which substance and realism reign supreme. His presidency begins in earnest. The expectations of Americans and the rest of the world would quickly dawn on him. He will realise that what John F. Kennedy said in 1961 is true in today’s America’s geopolitical pursuits: "The dividing line between domestic and foreign affairs has became as distinct as a line drawn in water."

A lot of his initial time, energy and focus will be on domestic issues. With the national debt on course to top US$11 trillion (Sh825 trillion), unemployment hitting record height month after month and an economy on a terminal decline, Obama will be glued to the national agenda. But as he rightly said last week, Obama will not escape international issues that cry for a more forceful and fair attention of the incoming administration. Obama has for instance said that he and his team will engage the Gaza conflict between Hamas and Israel immediately after he is sworn in. His foreign engagements will not stop there.

In foreign engagement, whether it is with the Muslim world, Africa or the entire globe the Obama administration will be greatly helped by a number of factors. First, the Bush administration has eroded America’s global standing and the esteem the rest of the world had for America so much that even a token symbolic gesture by Obama will be greatly magnified. Take for instance his promise to close down Guantanamo Bay detention centre and end the policy of torture that is practised by the Bush administration.

By allowing torture of alleged terrorists and operating a torture camp that breaks many norms of international law, Bush showed a shade of something akin to a Third World despot who can’t deal with his opponents through the usual instruments of law. Who ever thought that America will use torture that was common in Africa decades ago to torment prisoners like Mohammed al-Khatani?

America has historically been a paragon of legal virtue and has been at the forefront in initiating and promoting most of the profound human rights conventions of the last 60 years. So when Bush broke the historic backbone of the country promoting human rights and adherence to the rule of law on the global stage its sole claim to international leadership evaporated overnight.

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Promise

Obama’s promise to engage the United Nations differently from the Bush administration will greatly improve America’s standing in the world. Bush treated the UN with contempt and reverted to it only when he wanted a convenient seal of legality to his ill-fated global escapades. He adopted a unilateralist approach in his dealing with the world body and thought that might was always right. The appointment of Ms Susan Rice as America’s ambassador to the UN and her elevation to a cabinet level position is a pointer to new multilateralism in Obama’s approach to global issues. Obama’s foreign policy will have a strong UN flavour.

It was humbling to listen to Bush’s farewell address to the American people. The main foreign policy achievement he claimed was his assertion that he has transformed Iraq and Afghanistan into vibrant democracies. What democracies are these two failed states? Only Bush can claim that President Karzai of Afghanistan, who is popularly called the Mayor of Kabul presides over a vibrant democratic Afghanistan!

Challenges

Obama’s biggest challenge in foreign policy will be how he addresses the twin challenge posed by the quagmire that is the Middle East and enduring faceoff with the Muslim world. There is hypocritical pretence in the West that all is well between the Muslim world and Western powers. The truth is the West sees the Muslim world as posing a unique challenge, while the latter, or at least the Muslim masses, see Western powers as global oppressors that nurse dictatorship and acquiesce to the oppression of the Muslim umma.

This subtle and simmering conflict between the West and the Muslim world is best provided by even a casual appraisal of the countries the west engaged militarily during the last two decades. Whether it is in Africa, the Middle East or Far East, all the conflict zones of the globe involve a Muslim country engaged or occupied by a western military power. This meeting of the West and the Muslim world is most noticeable in what Bush called the ‘War on Terror; and the absence of an honest broker in the Israel Palestine conflict.

As British Foreign secretary David Milliband rightly said, Bush’s war on terror is premised on a wrong fallacy that military might rights the wrong of terror. This is further validated by another underlying fallacy perpetuated by Bush that justice and equity are not principles that should form a component of America’s police power throughout the world. The war on terror is a global undertaking of the entire world and Obama will get enormous help from the Muslim world if he rationalises the doctrinal policy that should accompany the dominant brute force doctrine of the Bush era. He must build his new policy on the basis that human rights are universal and brute force has historically been ineffective in the long term and doesn’t really bring enduring peace.

Obama should quickly realise that the best way to end global terror is not to spend billions of dollars in drones, ear dropping gadgets and satellites all trying to capture Osama bin Laden. Of course Osama provides the symbolism of global jihad but he neither provides the incentive nor the philosophical rationalization. On the contrary he is a lonely figurehead who has the most tenuous claim to global jihadist leadership. Obama in order to bring peace to the world and to take zest out of global terror needs to address two underlying fundamental issues. First, Obama should help the Arab masses overthrow the western allied monarchies and Sheikhs that shackle the free sprits of the Muslim population. His adviser might counsel him that this will be against American national interest and this is where the tragedy of American foreign policy in the Muslim world comes to the fore. On the contrary Obama should be told, and he probably knows, that democratising the Muslim world in the Middle East is in the national interest of America and will go along way in dousing the jihadist flame fuelled by the oppressive and unrepresentative kings of the Muslim world. A democratic Middle East will not be anti-West or anti-American.

Accountable

A democratic Middle East will be a group of independent states accountable to their people and subject of democratic audit and accountability.

Imagine if Obama heralds the democratisation of countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Successive regimes in Washington and other Western capitals have over the years held the converse view that a democratic Muslim or Arab world will lead to a resurgence of Islam as a counter ideology to the West and is dangerous to their global dominance. Two examples provide a very important example of western fear of democratic Islam. Algeria, when it last held a democratic election, brought to power the Islamic-leaning party. Alarm bells rung in Paris and other Western capitals, and France headed a Western response that forced the Algerian army to take power. Algeria plunged into a civil war and has never recovered. Hamas won the election in Palestine, much to the disappointment of the West and has been blacklisted since then. America historically sides with Muslim despots against the people and Obama has a historic opportunity is herald a new paradigm.

Second, Obama should midwife a lasting and equitable peace between the Palestinians and the Israeli state. This is a conflict that raises emotions, and Obama is probably best suited to have a fresh go at this conflict. Israel is a small but powerful and democratic country that needs unique guarantees. It is surrounded by countries that have vowed to destroy it even when they don’t have a fraction of Israel’s military strength.

But Israel’s democracy and credentials have been dimed by its inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people. This has taken a lot of gloss from its rather proud democracy. It has treated the Palestinians despite the later sterile rhetoric, inhumanly. With the current conflict in Gaza and the impending election in Israel, coupled with Obama’s presidency, a window of opportunity presents itself for Obama to broker a fair deal based on the two State principles. Obama, like Bill Clinton, has the intellect that can rationalise the injustices and the promises of the region and with America’s influence and goodwill attain fair and lasting peace between these sworn enemies.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court and former chairman of the Law Society of Kenya.