[The Toronto Star, Canada]

 

 

Die Zeit, Germany

Too Bad: Even Obama's Day Only Contains 24 Hours

 

"Neither Berlin nor Brussels can afford to waste the U.S. government's time with petty grievances. Time is running out for all of us. The next summit will be held on the precipice of a worldwide depression. After eight years of adversity Europe no longer fears American leadership, but expects it."

 

By Michael Naumann

                                     

 

Translated By Ulf Behncke

 

January 29, 2009

 

Germany - Die Zeit - Original Article (German)

The office as well as the state were like new again, just as they were when the first President of the United States, George Washington, was asked whether he should be addressed as “Your Majesty.” Modesty prevailed. When Barack Obama took the oath of office before nearly two million Americans, many saw him too, as a redeemer. The new "Majesty." The young president knew to shy away from rosy expectations in his inaugural speech. It wasn't he alone, but all Americans, who were summoned to bring forth major change. It sounded as though he was reaching out to each and every individual: You must change your lives and re-invent America. But it won’t happen overnight.

 

Only a week later, the sluggishness of how the government actually functions has put a damper on any high expectations. The stimulus package of nearly a trillion dollars has encountered resistance from Republicans in Congress. They will no doubt sign off on it once they've received the usual perks for their constituents - as it hasn’t been lost on anyone that they showed only the slightest opposition to George W. Bush's $700 billion rescue package for the financial industry. And that was, in any case, too small.

 

Yet even before Congress has a chance to sign off on the new federal rescue package (and with the major impact of it at least a year away), Barack Obama has begun distancing himself from the Bush era with a number of potent executive orders. Strict emission standards for vehicles in many states will help lead the United States back into the fold of global environmental policy, and the Kyoto Protocols are no longer considered foreign folly. Legal limits governing fuel consumption are to be imposed (40 percent less by the year 2020). Renewable energy sources will receive preferential subsidies. Obama’s announcement that he would put an end to the secrecy of the U.S. Executive will, sooner or later, expose the machinations of the Bush-Cheney energy policy.

 

Politically easier yet far more complex to effectuate, is the planned reform of the financial sector. The credit rating agencies , after their bizarre judgments on unreliable financial institutions, are to be put under strict supervision and the business of dealing in risky derivatives will now be subject to government control. The U.S. financial system's neo-liberal era is over.

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If Obama manages to implement these plans, that alone would warrant his place in text books on global economics, yet foreign policy challenges loom even larger. In Pakistan, nuclear bombs are in proximity of officers capable of mounting a coup; Israel is in the midst of an endless conflict with the Palestinian people; Iran is manufacturing its first nuclear weapon; in Moscow. a new dictatorship is emerging - one capable of causing substantial geopolitical disruption; China is turning into an unpredictable competitor; in Afghanistan, military failures are coming home to roost; in Iraq, if American troops are withdrawn the United States will leave behind an unpacified country. And Osama bin Laden’s terror network hasn't disappeared, either.

 

 

U.S. military superiority remains undisputed, but the reconstruction of international law and the United States’ globally damaged reputation depends not only on the fate of the prisoners at Guantanamo and reform decrees at the CIA, but completely new approaches in the areas of energy and environmental technology, and financial and economic policy, for example, the reform of the World Bank  and the International Monetary Fund .

 

The era of national economic egotism is over - yet globally, unregulated financial flows are no longer perceived as an unadulterated blessing. On the contrary. The nations of OPEC beg to differ and so do great and small dictatorships across the globe. Integrating them into the global economic dialogue will be the formidable task of Hillary Clinton. No American Secretary of State and no American President have ever been confronted by greater challenges from day one - apart from the Founding Fathers and Obama’s role model, Abraham Lincoln.  

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But idealism alone will not be enough to cope. Unavoidably, Obama’s image as a charismatic Democrat will be tarnished by the obligation of taking substantial political decisions. But even his day only contains 24 hours. Neither Berlin nor Brussels can afford to waste the U.S. government’s time with petty grievances. Time is running out for all of us. The next summit will be held on the precipice of a worldwide depression. After eight years of adversity Europe no longer fears American leadership, but expects it. Or as the great American poet Walt Whitman said: "Finally, the new has come," … in the form of the old, much more intelligent America. [Editor's Note: this Whitman quote is translated].

 

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US February 7, 3:58am]