Obama's luck takes a lot of hard work
Friday, 25 July 2008
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When Barack Obama stepped onto a basketball court at a US base in Kuwait at the start of his nine-day foreign trip, he nailed a three-pointer on his first attempt.
It was luck, "the gods had decided to favour him," said the veteran commentator David Broder.
In the tightly controlled Obama presidential campaign, such things are never left to chance. The day before he flew out, the presidential hopeful spent 180 minutes perfecting his shot at no less than three Chicago gyms.
But as the candidate passed from Afghanistan to Iraq, Israel and the West Bank, there was a distinct sensation of the waters parting for him and intractable problems being solved, even before his arrival. With foreign leaders greeting him as though he was already head of state and with opinion polls telling them he may soon be, the Illinois Senator seemed, in a curious way, to be peaking already.
The day he left Chicago, President Bush reversed his cherished policy of not talking with Iran and sent the third highest State Department official to a meeting in Geneva. The Afghanistan government embraced Mr Obama's position that their country, not Iraq, should be the focus of any "war on terror".
And despite months of sneering at Mr Obama's 16-month timetable for withdrawal, the White House was persuaded by Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to agree to "a time horizon" for the departure of US troops leaving. Only 8 months now separates the Bush-Maliki timetable from the Obama plan.
His time in Israel and the West Bank was the most perilous for the Democrat, given that many Jewish voters in America still view him with suspicion. But thoroughly briefed by virtually the same foreign policy team that advised former President Bill Clinton, he even tried his hand at some shuttle diplomacy, dashing between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders, flashing his enthusiastic smile to Mr Abbas, listening carefully with his arm around Israeli veteran Shimon Peres.
The sharp reality is that the minute a US president is inaugurated, the complexity of ruling and the need to get re-elected start to dominate.
Less than six months before the election, Mr Obama plans to hit the ground running -- with a strict timeline of initiatives and policies - should he be chosen as the 44th president.
As he spoke before massive crowds in Berlin last night, there was already criticism back home that the "the more admiration Obama elicits on his trip to the Middle East and Europe, the less voters in Kansas will trust him." But Mr Obama was careful not to pander to his European admirers: "Hopefully it will be viewed as a substantive articulation of the relationship I would like to see between the United States and Europe," he said.
The reviews for Mr Obama were mostly favourable and his critics could not point to single misstep. Despite that the Bush Administration did what it could to make life difficult for him. On the eve of his trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice instructed US embassies to give the candidate minimal support.
"If the campaign staff wants to rent a bus for press, tell them where they can rent a bus,'' she ordered. No such instructions were issued prior to John McCain trips to Canada and Columbia.
By contrast when Mr McCain, in a flak-jacket, walked through a Baghdad market last year to declare it safe, helicopter gun ships hovered overhead and 100 security men stood guard.
