Obama's honeymoon period is over

With Reuters reporting a growing concern among Americans at US President Barack Obama’s government spending, automobile industry bailout and other economic policies, set against the backdrop of former president George Bush taking a swipe at his successor, perhaps it is appropriate to call time on Obama’s honeymoon period.

Yesterday the president announced the overhaul of the financial industry rules only to be met with scepticism from banks and lawmakers who believe that his proposals may well retard recovery. While they were querying the role of the Federal Reserve, Bush was delivering a speech wherein he asserted that the recovery must be driven by the private sector and rejected suggestions of nationalising healthcare.

It appears to be clear that Americans do not trust Obama with the economy as yet with many believing that he does not have a strategy in place to deal with the budget deficit. The irony in all this is that it was precisely because voters believed that the Democratic nomination for president, ie Obama, was better prepared to deal with the economy that they elected him over his Republican counterpart.

Yet the economy is not the only area which is causing grave concerns at this stage. If regard is had to current US foreign policy then at best — at this point in time — there are vast areas of uncertainty in regions where you’d least like them to be. As a result of the non-prescriptive partnership approach and using two of today’s examples we are witnessing North Korea totally out of control and Iran uncertain of its position with the US. On the one hand they have the president refusing to endorse either side while on the other they have a state department that is clearly supporting Mousavi.

This gives you the worst of all worlds.

The Iranian government calling US conduct an “intolerable meddling” in their affairs, Mousavi not receiving any endorsement — which under previous US administrations he clearly would have — and the region watching to see whether they are dealing with pre-revolutionary Iran, as suggested by former UN ambassador John Bolton, or Ahmadinejad which would signal a return to building nukes.

“My country right or wrong” being replaced with “we’ll wait to see if we have a partner”.

The problem with the latter approach is that often, as we are witnessing right now, there is a lacuna where strict foreign policy used to be. While Bush was unpleasant in this area, at least everyone knew where they stood including Americans. Yesterday in the US itself the Iranian-American community marched in protest at what is going on in Tehran and received no official support. Under Bush there had been clear direction, under Obama it’s all about wait and see.

Pat Buchanan, who served in the administrations of three presidents and ran for the post as the GOP candidate several times, believes that this approach is paying dividends. He basis this upon the fact that Ahmadinejad and the theocracy have suffered irreparable damage as a result of this election and the US must wait to see how the cards fall.

Moreover Buchanan suggests that US intervention — in any form — will give Ahmadinejad a rallying point ie America, the Great Satan, the common enemy of the Iranian people, interfering in its affairs in order to destroy Iran. In this he is not entirely wrong as we witnessed last night with the Iranian government condemning US interference in its internal affairs.

Unfortunately, as former president Clinton found out, when you stand back too far and allow things to develop on their own you sometimes land up with a genocide in Rwanda and a nuclear Pyongyang with all and any efforts to remedy this being a case of far too little too late.

In the case of Obama, the steps being taken to right the economy, initiate recovery as well as US foreign policy are too important to the planet to allow the honeymoon period to go on indefinitely.

Obama’s policies need to be scrutinised and debated head-on right now.