Endorsing Barack Obama

Like many Nigerians, and indeed millions of observers from all across the world, this column has been following the unfolding US primaries and election season for several months now. As readers of this column will have noticed, we offered support for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy during the democratic primaries because I sincerely believed (as I still do) that she would have been a very competent head of the strongest nation on earth. Of all the candidates on offer across both the republican and democratic parties, I thought she came to the race with the best preparation and the most complete credentials-in economy, foreign policy and national security-for the American voter. From the point of view of the international audience, she offered a return to effective international engagement that we saw during her husband Bill Clinton’s regime, rather than the unthinking ideology and special-interests driven neo-conservatism and chest-thumping of the Bush Jnr. years.

The Bush posture has isolated America in world opinion and led to the increase rather than a reduction in Islamic fundamentalism and terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the middle-east. The proper strategy would have been to isolate the extremists rather than as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co. ended up doing becoming in effect recruitment agents for them. I do not blame Bush for global terrorism-the blame for that remains squarely that of Osama Bin Ladin and those of his ilk who spread hate and fear, and those in some of the constituencies he claims to represent who appear supportive or at least ambivalent towards his dangerous ideology. But America has offered the world leadership through the second world war, the era of reconstruction and the cold war precisely because of the values of freedom, democracy and notions of moral superiority that it espoused rather than just muscle flexing, or descending into the standards of its adversaries; and the Bush regime has done no more than flex its bulging muscles in the last seven years.

The failure of that approach has become so glaring today and a new, more effective approach is clearly required. Hillary I thought was a very safe option for the democrats-she was well-known by the US voters; the republicans had spent many years investigating and probing into every area of her life that it was unlikely they could find any thing new that could hurt her in an election; she was clearly competent, popular and brilliant and whether in terms of domestic policy or international leadership, Hillary’s suitability could hardly be questioned. I personally admired her as a very intelligent and strategic-minded first lady who supported her husband through very trying times and emerged from it all with the respect and admiration of many all over the world.

On the other hand, Barack Obama appeared at first like a long shot-a single-term Senator who was coming into the US Senate from the Illinois legislature, with apparently thin credentials on economy, foreign policy and national security, … and he was black and liberal. It seemed his only strengths were his personal charisma and self-confidence, or well “The Audacity of Hope”! It was most unlikely that Obama’s profile would stand up to Hillary’s and even if he beat Hillary by some twist of inexplicable Democratic Party manoeuvring, surely he was unelectable in white-dominated America? Well not quite, it seems. Obama upset all the calculations and secured a stunning though narrow victory over Clinton. It seems the republicans preferred an Obama victory over Hillary because they thought he would be easier to defeat than she, and of course they totally fear and dread Hillary.

Well bad news for the republicans! This column feels confident at this point in time to offer an unconditional endorsement of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. And we fully expect that come January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will step into the White House as President of the United States of America. It would surely be a great epoch for the Kenyan-born African-American, but it would also offer hope to all African-Americans and indeed all minorities in the US that race, colour, class, sex (thanks to Hillary) and personal disadvantages of any hue can not limit one in reaching any heights we seek. It would be a moment of restoration for the African-Americans after slavery, segregation and discrimination and I hope should help create a new stereotype of the African-American male which generations to follow can aspire to.

Beyond America, Obama’s victory will confirm to the rest of the world that the US is indeed the land of the possible. How else can America shame its adversaries than demonstrate to them the ultimate reality of the American dream, a country in which a boy born to a Kenyan immigrant student and a white mother, partly educated in Indonesia can go on to Harvard and then become a Senator and in short cause, president and commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. But Obama’s victory will also restore American leadership-in Europe, the middle-east, Africa and the rest of the world. As I write this article, I look with pride at CNN images of Obama in Afghanistan and Iraq. I see US soldiers offer an enthusiastic applause as he meets with them; I see him eat with the service men in their cafeteria and chat easily with the officers; I see him confidently interact with Karzai in Kabul and Al-Maliki in Iraq and it is clear that what we see is an emerging leader who will etch his name in history and fulfil a great destiny.

Fortunately it is also clear that Obama will be a competent leader-his instincts on the Iraqi war were right, and those of Bush, McCain and others for all their foreign policy and national security know-how were wrong; he spoke about talking with Iran, and now the US is doing exactly that; he argued in favour of concentrating the war in Afghanistan, rather than Iraq and he has been proved correct; he spoke about a time-line for withdrawal from Iraq and now the Iraq government is hinting at same; he has stronger ratings than McCain on the economy, and I am certain that shortly, he will also overtake McCain on national security. The republicans forget that Obama studied International Relations in Columbia, that he has a natural exposure to Africa where his father hailed from, and the Islamic world, having grown up in Indonesia, in short rather than foreign policy and national defence been his Achilles heel like the republicans hope, it will turn out to be an Obama strength.

Most importantly, I believe that as Americans go to the polls in November, they will be reminded as Obama wrote in his “The Audacity of Hope” that “at the core of the American experience are a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes our improbable experiment in democracy work. These values and ideals find expression not just in the marble slabs of monuments or in the recitation of history books. They remain alive in the hearts and minds of most Americans-and can inspire us to pride, duty, and sacrifice” and they will vote for Barack Obama.