Sunday, November 04, 2007

US presidential race and world expectations


Barrack Obama should be elected president to break the historic routine of US presidents of Anglo-Saxon descent. US should have a new face abroad and at home. USA needs to improve its image among Muslims who see it as Israel unconditional supporter, Iraq invader and a menace to Iran.

Whoever is elected as president should work hard to improve the image of the USA tarnished by the foreign policy of the current Bush Administration after 9/11. Any future president should make USA look benign instead of a monstrously bullying nation through its war machine and economic sanctions. USA needs the popular support of the countries it wants to do business with and not just a coercive alliance with puppet regimes that through them it secures its strategic and economic superiority.

Perhaps small countries should learn to balance their relation worldwide. Relying on a single power is like putting all one’s eggs in a single basket, with the risk of having all smashed out at a very short notice.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your visit to my blog. I agree with you totally that "small countries should learn to balance their relation worldwide." I have been wondering for a long time why nations in the Middle East always wait for U.S. permission instead of working out new relations among themselves.

I want to disagree with you, however, or at least raise some doubts about Obama. It's true that he will bring a new face to American foreign policy, but will it be more than a face? He has voiced support for Israel as strong as any candidate, and he supports an interventionist foreign policy with 90,000 additional troops. See my critique here:

http://www.eatbees.com/blog/2007/07/21/cant-support-obama/

My fear as an American voter who can't decide which candidate to support (I like Edwards and Dodd best) is that no candidate with a progressive, democratic vision will have the establishment support needed to win, because this would be perceived to be against U.S. interests. So we will bully less with a president from the Democratic Party, but we will still bully... and we will still keep a military presence in most of the world's nations.

I wish it was different!

Abdelilah Boukili said...

Thanks eatbees for your comment.
As you know no presidential candidate can be an exception when it comes to the support of Israel.

As you know the US has a general foreign policy that is handed out from one administration to another. Obama can mark the US history if he succeeds in breaking the neo-con current monopoly of the US internal policy. The US has historically been involved in major successive wars, especially after WWII. Obama will be no exception in mobilizing US armed forces to defend US interests.

As you have said small countries, especially those in the Middle East don't trust each other. They trust just US their big brother. They can talk about Arab unity, but their reciprocal mistrust won't allow them to go as far as having a common defense policy. When it comes to defense they become more territorial than their presumably official statements of Arab unity.

By the way I added you blog to the link on my blog.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the blogroll link ;)

Let's hope things start evolving for the better instead of for the worse as they have been these past few years. Even a return to the situation under Bill Clinton would be wonderful.

I probably shouldn't say this (out of fear of being proven wrong) but it feels like things HAVE to get better because we must be close to the bottom already.