The man, who on January 20 last asked the Muslim world to open their clenched fist so that he could shake hands with them, has now clenched his own fist. Though the situation has not deteriorated in the last about one month and a half of his power, there is indication that 13,000 more troops will join them later in the year. Earlier he had announced increase in US troops in Afghanistan by 17,000 soldiers. Thus the US presence in that mountainous country will jump from 35,000 to 65,000 within a year of Barack Husain Obama taking over as President of the USA. This, notwithstanding the recent warning to the new US President by the Russian war veterans that more army in Afghanistan would mean more casualties and nothing more.
In case of Iraq too, apparently there is no increase in the threat to US army, yet he is doing what George Bush did. That is why none else, but his Republican Presidential rival, John McCain, applauded him. In contrast many left-leaning Democrat members of House of Representatives and Senators have come down heavily on him. Though he declared pull-out from Iraq by August 31, 2010, his administration recently disclosed the plan to leave 50,000 troops in that country for an unknown period.
On this double-speak of the Obama administration House of Representative member Dennis Kucinich (Democratic Ohio) asked: “You cannot leave combat troops in a foreign country to conduct combat operations and call it the end of the war.”
What Obama now needs to explain to the world is as to what has happened in these two countries in the past 35 days, which has prompted him to make a complete U-turn. He may give a hell lot of argument on Afghanistan, but what about Iraq, where according to their own version the situation has improved rather than deteriorated. If Iraq could not be stabilised with over one lakh US soldiers – not to speak of the NATO countries – how can the extra army in Afghanistan solve the problem?
God knows what Obama meant by his appeal to open the fist when leaders of almost all the Muslim countries are friendly towards the United States. Save Iran and possibly a couple of other Muslim countries all of them have a very cordial relationship with the USA. It is only some non-state actors or state-less groups who are hostile towards it. Their stand towards the US has not changed since January 20.
There are about eight to nine million Muslims in the United States. They have not reached that country with their fists tightly clasped. They are friendly towards the fellow Americans – Christians, Jews and Hindus. Obama earned a lot of goodwill of Muslims in his own country by announcing a series of measures. He closed down Guantanamo Bay prison and promised change in policy towards the Muslim countries. For the general population of that country he disclosed his own economic plan. The cut in military presence in the war-zones was a part of that very strategy. But still many Muslims voted for him thinking that his policy for global Muslims is quite different from the one pursued by George W. Bush. It needs to be mentioned that in 2000 Muslims voted overwhelmingly for Bush as the vice presidential candidate of Democrats, Joe Lieberman, was a Jew.
In his first month in office he may not have lost much of the popularity in his own country, yet it is now clear that so far foreign policy is concerned it is not going to change much. The Democrats and Republicans have always pursued the same sort of policy on all the major issues, right from World War-I or even before.
Those who were expecting too much change in it were either not aware of the US history or were taken away by the charisma and propaganda of the western machinery. Those who really run the United States or those who matter most often succeed in getting their men planted at the top. Obama is one among them. Those who were calling the shot during the Bush era may continue to do so even today. With his own clenched fist it is now Obama’s turn to deliver blows on other countries.