Obama is not Bush but Barack is American

10

Tweet

"United States today spends approximately as much as the rest of the world combined on its military establishment, yet it is worth pondering why it is that after nearly four years of effort, thousands of American lives lost, and perhaps a half trillion dollars of outlays, the United States has not succeeded in pacifying a small country of some 24 million people, much less in leading it to anything that looks remotely like a successful democracy." These words were written by Francis Fukuyama in 2006. One of the most prominent thinkers of modern times and proponent of End of History, Fukuyama sums up the real agony of US and its tragedy as a nation and also all the problems its facing now. It is not a co-incidence that President Obama in his inaugural speech has said: "We are in the midst of crisis is now well understood."

Francis Fukuyama has understood the problem and so has the new President and no wonder then that in his first speech he has tried to wind the clock back. Fukuyama belongs to a bunch of thinkers named as Neo-Conservatives or Neocons who has been providing the intellectual impetus to George Bush's policy formulations and overseeing its implementation in letter and spirit. Though Fukuyama realised the follies much sooner than the rest and tried to distance himself, the rest of the thinkers did not follow suit. Though Neocons were there since the time of Reagan, but the end of the Cold War brought them into mainstream of American thinking and they became so influential that they started dictating the policy framework of Bush administration.

Death of communism and end of the Cold War has so intoxicated the Neocons that they believed the US is the unquestioned and unmatched leader of the world civilisation and it is above all kinds of international rules and regulations and does not need any support from any where - not even from its traditional allies in Europe. They also believe that US, by its sheer might, is competent enough to take decisions on behalf of any nation or state, that US is the only one who is morally duty-bound by destiny to civilise those who has no faith in liberal democracy for history has proved that it has won the final battle vis-a-vis anti-West ideologies. They believe the US is the true protector of equality, liberty and fraternity and it is the US' job to universalise these noble ideas for the rest of the world.

Derived from these thoughts, the Bush Administration evolved concepts like 'regime change' and ignoring the universal understanding of not violating the sovereignty of a state. The Bush Administration behaved like a 'benevolent hegemony' and the kings of the 'unipolar world'. It did not realise that the basic moral fibre of a liberal democracy is legitimacy, rule by discussion, consensus building, respect for descent and majority opinion. If liberty is the cornerstone of the US Constitution, then who has given them power to usurp the other civilisation's right to rule as per their will? It's the democratic right of a country and its countrymen to decide what kind of a system they want for themselves and want to live in. It is their fundamental right to decide not that of any other other country or ruler.

As French writer Pierre Hassner has observed: "In their domestic institutions, the Americans believe in checks and balances because they distrust concentration of power, even if well intentioned and democratically legitimated. But in the unipolar post-Cold War world, they have uncritically promoted US hegemony and said to the rest of the world, 'Trust me'." Hassner questions: "If unchecked power is corrupting in a domestic context, so why would it not also be bad for the power holder internationally?"

So when Bush decided to invade Iraq without any legitimate reason it decided to go against the basic tenets of US philosophical foundations and it paid the price which it richly deserved. Bush was so enamoured by the Neocons that to invade Iraq it concocted facts and imagined reasons which was difficult to believe. Bush talked about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussain's contact with the al-Qaeda - both proved to be false, something which was later admitted by America's own agencies. It seemed that Bush was probably inspired by the Guru of the Neocon movement, Leo Strauss, who used to propagate the theory that "champions of the noble lie" - the idea that it is practically a duty to lie to the masses because only a small elite is intellectually fit to know the truth.

He did not take his traditional European allies in confidence before declaring war in Iraq. He didn't bother about the United Nations. For him it was either you are with me or you are against me. In the words of Fukuyama, Bush's administration was "sceptical about the ability of international laws and institutions to solve serious security problems and his disdain for the international community became the disdain for any country that did not support his policies. No wonder then that Bush became the most unpopular American President and US the most hated country as well as the reason for the spread of jehadi terrorism. In the last days of his presidency, Bush was a lonely figure and America a discredited super power that had ceased to have any moral right to lead the modern civilisation. It was this realisation that made Barack Obama announce that: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."

He further elaborated saying: "As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man. Those ideals still light the world and we will not give up for expedience sake .... and so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today - know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that WE ARE READY TO LEAD ONCE MORE." He said this without taking any names but making it explicit that the founding fathers understood that US' power alone cannot protect it, nor does it entitle the country to do as it pleases. "Instead ... our power grows through its prudent use, our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restrain." I am sure Angels of American Democracy must have smiled when they saw George Bush clapping at the end of Obama's speech which was nothing else but the anti-theses of what he stood for or did. I

Can we conclude that with the arrival of new dawn, with the emergence of new hero, the era of benevolent hegemony is over? Can we say that now America will not go for 'regime change' be it Iraq or Afghanistan? The words of Obama try to ensure this and they give us the confidence that US will learn from the mistakes committed by philosophy of Neocons - especially when we hear Obama saying: "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

I am not saying that America has changed for forever, I am not saying that America will never send its troops to Iraq or Afghanistan. What I am saying is that it will use force with SEEN MORALITY, with consensus. It will not be with arrogance of an imperial power, it will not be hard power. It will use soft power, it will be more subtle and indirect in its exercise because as Fukuyama has said: "American power is more useful when it is latent." Because let's not forget that though Obama is not Bush and there are no Neocons to guide him, but he is an American and an American who believes in - as Madeline Albright said long ago - "America deserves to lead because they can see further than other people."