Monday, September 28, 2009

'Nightmare Presidency --a neophyte completely out of his depth'

  • Editorial, The Pioneer (India):
"He may not relish the comparison but it is now becoming increasingly obvious that Mr Barack Obama is the most hostile American President for India since Richard Nixon. In the eight months he has been in office, Mr Obama has snubbed India more than once. He has sent repeated signals that New Delhi is not integral to his Asian security architecture.
He headlined anti-trade legislation by saying it would punish those who created jobs in Bangalore rather than Buffalo,
In contrast, the tariff war against Chinese tires has not been posited in such stark bilateral terms.
  • This past week, the Obama team reversed a decade of American nuclear pragmatism and went back to an
  • outdated non-proliferation agenda that should have died, really, in the 1990s.
Once more, India has been asked to give up its nuclear weapons and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
  • as a second-tier power.
Most alarmingly, Mr Obama has swung wildly on Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak). At various points his diplomats and Generals have said different things. Yet, in all this the overarching political message has been missing.
  • In the early months, it was easy to pretend he was making up his mind.
  • Now, it would seem he has no mind.
His confusion on AfPak and constant shifting of tactical milestones would suggest he has little understanding of the nature of the challenge there and,
If the Obama Administration’s most recent thoughts on AfPak are taken as final,
  • the American President is looking to cut and run.
He would want to begin bringing troops home by early 2012,
  • in time for his re-election.
This would mean delegating Afghanistan to the Pakistani Army, and asking it to control the Taliban. It would also activate a
This formidable combination of wealth, geography, religious appeal, unending foot-soldiers and nuclear weapons would create a monster power straddling south and west Asia. To some degree, it could be offset by a strong India and a stable Iran, which would flank AfPak. However, Mr Obama is determined that Teheran must not pursue its Bomb and India should be pressured to sign the NPT.
  • “sustained and expanded commitment”.
Given the intensely and admirably egalitarian nature of the United States presidential election process, it has always been a theoretical possibility that the country will send to the White House a person
Often this has not been the case, and incumbents have risen to the job. Sixty years ago, Harry S Truman had limited first-hand knowledge of great power bargaining but turned out to be farsighted enough to anticipate the Cold War. Mr Obama is the antithesis of this phenomenon.
  • India could have done without this neophyte."
"Nightmare Presidency," The Pioneer (India) Editorial, 9/28/09, via Lucianne.com. (I guess the continent of India is simply racist). (framus)

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