Garnering praise from the media and mainstream political pundits, Barack Obama recently returned from an international trip with stops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain. The highly anticipated campaign event was his first major trip abroad as the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee.
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Pressured to look “tougher” on foreign policy, Obama reassured the U.S. ruling class of his commitment to victory and domination of the region. He pledged to continue the war in Afghanistan with significant increases in American military and financial commitment, at one point suggesting an additional “two or three combat brigades.”
Obama reiterated his support for a “phased withdrawal” from Iraq, but carefully qualified his stance by adding that any timetable would be contingent on the situation on the ground and devised in consultation with military leaders.
In an July 26 Newsweek interview, Obama voiced his support for a long-term significant American commitment in Iraq:
“I also think that [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] recognizes that they’re going to need our help for some time to come, as our commanders insist, but that the help is of the sort that is consistent with the kind of phased withdrawal that I have promoted. We’re going to have to provide them with logistical support, intelligence support. We’re going to have to have a very capable counterterrorism strike force. We’re going to have to continue to train their Army and police to make them more effective.”
With those words, the Democratic candidate who has come to embody the anti-war hopes of a large portion of the U.S. electorate thus reassured the U.S. capitalist class that its geopolitical interests in the Middle East are in good hands.
A nod to the Israeli garrison state
Obama’s Middle East visit could not have been complete without reaffirming U.S. support for Israel, the cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy. Obama was f?ted by King Abdullah II during his Jordan stop, where he stated his intention during press events to immediately work around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he becomes President.
Spending 34 hours in Israel, Obama met with Holocaust survivors, went to the Wailing Wall and held high-level meetings with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and ultra-right-wing legislator Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama also met very briefly with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party and senior negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Obama maintained his staunch pro-Israel stance—a requirement for any viable capitalist candidate to the U.S. presidency. He told Netanyahu that he “would never seek in any way to compromise Israel’s security.” Obama did not meet with Hamas members who were democratically elected to the Palestinian parliament in 2006—an election the U.S. and Israel rejected since it did not yield the desired victory for Fatah, presently the more compromise-oriented of the two dominant Palestinian parties.
Following his extremely pro-Zionist speech this summer before AIPAC, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States, Obama sought to appear a little more even handed. Obama also took his time in Israel to announce he was taking no options off the table with Iran, and as President would be very concerned with ending Iran’s nuclear program.
Riding the wave of anti-Bush sentiment
Germany, however, was the media spectacle of Obama’s tour. In Berlin, he spoke to 200,000 very enthusiastic Germans. The bellicose unilateralism of the current U.S. administration helped foster deep anger toward Bush and the United States within the European public. Obama has stated many times his desire to change these perceptions.
His message of “hope and change” resonated well in Europe, lending credibility to Obama as a solution to the U.S. image problem. The well-deserved negative perception of the U.S. government in Europe has become a political onus to regional leaders, making it harder for Washington to push its agenda in the continent.
While in Berlin, Obama denounced communism, praised the U.S.-initiated Cold War, and urged the continuation and deepening of the Atlantic Alliance—the alliance between U.S. and EU imperialism. Obama also demanded that Iran drop its nuclear ambitions, in reference to Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program. He defended a continued “war on terror,” calling on European countries to send more troops to Afghanistan. He affirmed his support for free trade and globalization.
However, the German newspaper Der Spiegel noted, “He didn’t utter a single negative word abroad about his own government, about the lies that were used to justify the Iraq war, about the ongoing revelations of torture by the CIA, or the fact that 74 percent of Americans feel that their country is on the wrong path.”
Is there hope for change?
Obama ended his tour with a quiet trip to Britain, where he met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Scottish politician had been weathering a number of electoral losses for his Labour Party, which had just recently been wiped out in a by-election in Glasgow East, formerly Labour’s third safest seat in the country.
Brown has presided over a near-collapse of the Labour Party because of its leading role in the neoliberal assault on the working class, which made Labour no real alternative to the centrist and right-wing parties. Obama’s appearance with Brown certainly invites an analogy with the Democrats, who play a similar role in the U.S. political system.
Obama expressed support for Brown in his time of woe. Brown lost support once he failed to meet the expectations of voters—a common problem for politicians who claim to represent the interests of the workers when, in fact, they represent diametrically opposed capitalist interests. Similarly, Obama’s move to the right since his nomination was secured has not brought him any closer to meeting the expectations of his progressive supporters, perhaps foreshadowing that hope for change may be doused quickly.
Obama seized this international tour as an opportunity to project himself as a capable statesman, demonstrating to the U.S. capitalist class that he is fit to take center stage in world politics. Calling himself a “citizen of the world” in Germany, and declaring America to be the conduit for the world’s aspirations, he distanced himself from the Bush administration’s unilateral approach to imperialist domination.
Staying in character as the advocate for change throughout his whirlwind tour, Obama rolled out a program of global U.S. military and economic hegemony to successfully strengthen his bid for the leading position of the U.S. imperialist state apparatus. Obama may be laying the groundwork for a shift in tactics, but it is clear that the ultimate goals of an eventual Obama presidency would differ little from those of his predecessor.
There is hope for change—but change will require shedding any illusions that Obama or the Democratic Party can be a substitute for an independent, progressive movement that struggles for its own demands.
