CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER Barack Obama's excellent adventure
By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG - As he began his tour of overseas war zones present and past, the
Iraq issue bounced Senator Barack Obama's way. As he demonstrated with US
troops in Kuwait on Saturday, presidential hopeful Obama knows basketball, and
in hoops, as in politics, it's not the bounces but putting the ball in the
basket that matters.
On this trip, the all-but-official Democratic presidential nominee needs to
show more than just a dazzling floor game. Obama needs to score throughout the
trip, not just with foreign leaders,
their constituents, US troops in the field, and the media troupe in tow, but
with American voters who are staying home because petrol above US$4 a gallon
makes it too expensive to go out.
Obama got off to a good start with the release on an interview with Iraq's
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. Obama is due
to stop in Germany and meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday.
Obama's 'right timeframe'
In the interview, Maliki said he wants US troops withdrawn from Iraq as soon as
possible. Asked specifically about Obama's 16-month schedule for pulling out,
Maliki called it "the right timeframe for a withdrawal". Obama can welcome this
Arab leader's endorsement of his plan, in contrast to the kind words about his
candidacy from Hamas adviser Ahmed Yousuf that Republicans claim makes Obama
the terrorist candidate.
Despite feeble efforts to deny the quote, Maliki's words seemingly cut the legs
out from President George W Bush, who has maintained that US troops will remain
in Iraq only as long as the host government wants them there, and putative
Republican nominee Senator John McCain, who advocates fighting to a yet
undefined "victory" in Iraq. Republicans have been adamant in rejecting a
timetable for withdrawal that Democrats want and last week tried to fudge the
issue in talks with Iraqis. But, while they've been disastrous in handling the
war, Bush and his party have been adept at manipulating the American public on
Iraq.
The Republicans have kept changing their objectives in Iraq, presenting the
Democrats with a moving target that's been tough to line up for a knockout
blow. The reasons for the invasion changed from finding hidden weapons of mass
destruction and fighting the forces behind the September 11, 2001, attacks to
deposing Saddam Hussein to fighting al-Qaeda again. An example of the
Republican two-step on Iraq came from House minority leader John Boehner last
weekend claiming that it's al-Qaeda's choice to fight the US in Iraq. A couple
of years ago, Boehner would have been claiming the US was in Iraq because of
al-Qaeda, but now he offers the opposite argument without breaking stride. It's
also an example of why the Iraq issue alone won't win the election for Obama.
Fed up, tuned out
US public opinion on Iraq seemingly favors Obama, with a majority of Americans
opposed to the war. Only 39% of voters now deny the invasion of Iraq was a
mistake. Democrats regained their majority in Congress in 2006 promising to end
the war. Yet, for all that, polls also show voters think McCain will handle
Iraq better than Obama. The public is fed up with the war, probably fed up with
itself for supporting it for so long, and fed up with congressional Democrats
for failing to end it. While the war is a huge point of divergence between
Obama and McCain, it's more of a focal point for the media than for swing
voters; they've largely moved on.
There may be room for Obama to win votes on Afghanistan, which he and McCain
agree should now be the focus on US efforts to defeat al-Qaeda. Obama might
come back from his visit with some concrete proposals on how to win the peace
in Afghanistan and break the country's addiction to opium production, as the
Bush administration failed to do in the wake of driving out the Taliban from
Kabul in 2001. On the military front, it may behoove Obama to match his
military prescriptions with those of McCain and emphasize that he's been
advocating focusing on Afghanistan for the past six years while Republicans
pursued the distraction in Iraq. Add in a soundbite-rich anecdote from
Nangarhar province in western Afghanistan that combines a folksy touch with
eyewitness insight, and that war can be a winner for Obama.
Amid the opportunities for Obama along the route - fist-bumping with US troops
would be an image worth the trip, but more important is for him to look the
part of a president, to convince voters that he'd be credible in that role -
there are plenty of dangers. McCain-style Shi'ite-Sunni confusion or getting
too cozy with West Bank Palestinians - no fist-jabbing there, senator - would
be hugely costly. It's ironic that the candidate with a foreign father and
stepfather who spent part of his youth living overseas has to prove his foreign
affairs chops, but that's US politics.
Travel temptations
While traveling, Obama has to resist the temptation to return Bush's gratuitous
insult of him before Israel's Knesset (parliament). Drawing huge crowds in
Europe could also be a negative, in part because Americans so despise Europe,
in part because it would feed into the image that Obama packs more style than
substance.
But Europe also represents the trip's biggest opportunity for Obama. While
looking presidential and making his bones with America's closest allies, he can
turn the conversation to the economy, the issue that is most likely to swing
those swing voters set to decide the election.
To make that work, Obama needs to link the fall in the US dollar, chronically
weak under Bush, with the economic troubles at home. He needs to talk about how
much higher gas prices seem because the dollar has fallen as petroleum prices
have risen. He needs to find a European leader to agree with him that overseas
companies bringing overvalued euros to the United States to buy landmark
assets, whether it's the Chrysler Building or Budweiser beer brewer
Anheuser-Busch, is unproductive speculation rather than job-creating real
investment that benefits all of the economies involved.
Obama and a European leader could talk about how developed economies on both
sides of the Atlantic can work together to break the oil addiction and address
global warming, rather than battling on the issue as has often been the case
under Bush. He can also reaffirm that he will work with the European Union
toward the shared goal of a non-nuclear Iran.
Bush's foolish adventure in Iraq alienated Europe and torpedoed the dollar as
badly as America's reputation. Obama's trip to the scenes of the crimes can
help show he's the right guy to repair the damage, not another dangerous naif
like Bush was eight years ago. Above all, on this trip and beyond, Obama needs
to demonstrate he's that rare commodity in politics and basketball, a straight
shooter. America and the world can't afford four more years of misses.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the
world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com),
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
high finance and cheap lingerie.
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