Guardian columnist and veteran reporter Jonathan Steele pennedan opinion piece on Wednesday about how Barack Obama, unlike the other Presidential candidates understand the American image problem.
Although it was published one day before President Bush's veiled jab at Obama's open approach to conducting diplomacy with enemies, the commentary unintentionally comes to the Senator's defense:
“…The Republican nominee John McCain accuses Obama of not having national security “experience”, but what experiences do he or Hillary Clinton have which compare with Obama's? They were raised in the usual American cocoon of believing that the values behind the country's anti-colonial beginnings still guide its international behaviour. Obama, by contrast, knows the US has run a global empire for at least the past half a century. His mother taught him, he writes [in Dreams From My Father], “to disdain the blend of ignorance and arrogance that too often characterised Americans abroad”.
This awareness of how many people around the world see the US is the bedrock on which Obama's approach to foreign policy is built. It is the opposite of the naive self-image of the US as a beacon on the hill. It explains his principled opposition to the Iraq war from its inception. It underpins his criticism of Clinton's threat to “obliterate” Iran if it considered attacking Israel. As he put it: “We have had a foreign policy of bluster and sabre-rattling and tough talk, and in the meantime have made a series of strategic decisions that have actually strengthened Iran … It is important that we use language that sends a signal to the world community that we’re shifting from the sort of cowboy diplomacy, or lack of diplomacy, that we’ve seen out of George Bush … This kind of language is not helpful,” he concluded coolly.
This does not mean Obama is a friend of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He calls him “reckless, irresponsible and inattentive” to the day-to-day needs of the Iranian people. He says the Iranian “regime is a threat to all of us”, and supports sanctions to prevent it getting nuclear weapons. But, unlike Clinton, he criticises Washington's refusal to have direct talks with Iran, as well as Cuba.”
This does not mean Obama is a friend of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He calls him “reckless, irresponsible and inattentive” to the day-to-day needs of the Iranian people. He says the Iranian “regime is a threat to all of us”, and supports sanctions to prevent it getting nuclear weapons. But, unlike Clinton, he criticises Washington's refusal to have direct talks with Iran, as well as Cuba…”
In Steele's conclusion he queries: “So the big questions remain: does Obama really want to change US foreign policy and can he, if he does? Having a black person in the Oval Office, and especially one with an understanding of US imperialism, would have a colossal international impact in itself. But would this merely result in even greater disappointment once the months go by and US policy stays the same? …I feel Obama is our best hope. In my mind I prepare for business as usual.”
Notably, Steele's article was also published in the Tehran Times, a widely-read English-language daily newspaper based in Tehran.
