What will really change now?
Updated on 21 January 2009
Alex Thomson writes a cautionary word about what we can really expect of Barack Obama's change.
I wonder how this will read in, say, a year's time...
It's just that, after so many journalists completely lost their heads yesterday, covering Obama like it was the Second Coming, we must now assess what we really, really know about how America is going to change.
First off, let's be honest about this change obsession. We don't really care all that much about how America is going to change: Medicaid... interventions for Maine fishermen... you know, real America. No, when we go on about America changing we basically mean one single issue - foreign policy.
And you know what? The hard, available evidence is that it ain't gonna change that much at all. Despite what you heard yesterday as so many TV correspondents lost the plot (with a handful of notable exceptions) the people whom Obama has already chosen at the State Dept are not the stuff of radical change from Hillary Rodham downwards.
Anything but.
And we already know this is a man who chose to stay completely silent over Gaza for the duration of the war - not a hint of comment or intervention for or against either side, in any meaningful way. Further, on Guantanamo Bay and the closure thereof, there is clear slippage. He says he will close it. Then he says it could take some time. And today comes the news that Gitmo trials will be suspended. Suspended?
I maybe missing something but I thought there was a thing called the Federal Justice System of the United States underpinned by the Constitution, upholding the very values that Obama had rather a lot to say on, only yesterday. What's the problem? If you want to close the place you close it. If you uphold American values of the Constitution then you turn these prisoners over to the Federal Justice System and let the courts and lawyers take their course.
And yes - given that torture is now admitted by the outgoing Texans - you cannot use that evidence. So yes, some al-Qaida people might go free. It's called open, fair justice. The new America. Obama's promised change. It is what yesterday's speech was surely leading up to. So why hasn't it happened?
With no clear explanation about why he has done this - it looks like he's bottled it.
And then there's Afghanistan where we have a clear pledge not only to support the Bush doctrine of war there which has failed thus far - but to extend it by increasing troops by more than 20,000. Notwithstanding the vague allusion to seeking "peace" in Afghanistan yesterday, we have only the policy promise to go on.
Iraq - I hear you cry. Well Iraq is an easy call to some extent because it is the very success of Bush policy there in the past couple of years which has raised the prospect of an exit, after catastrophic invasion.
All of which could, nay, should have been brought to the fore a lot more than it was in yesterday's coverage across the gushing media. For if you build somebody up to be The Messiah they will surely fall short of your hopes.
Don't forget the small British precedent for all this. That May morning when Tony Blair strode into Number 10 on the back of a landslide majority. Within days we were into Formula One and the Hinduja scandals and the rest. Well the rest is history.
Quiet, measured voices have foretold us about Obama and foreign policy and the dangers of falsely inflated expectations and hopes for change. You will search for evidence of radical change in vain. It may come. But it is not there right now.
Look to the evidence above. It's about all we have. And proceed with caution.
Best to you - AT
