The sum of failures recorded during Barack Obama's first year as President of the United States is no longer a secret. They are failures not just in terms of electoral promises that were not fulfilled, at both the domestic and foreign levels, but also in terms of the standing of the United States, of its image and of its policy. The grace period that was granted the new president went by quickly, after the meager years of George Bush's two terms, for the United States first and for the world second. Moreover, Obama's popularity is now tending towards decline, in a manner consecrated by the results of the latest elections in the state of Massachusetts, ands the defeat of the Democrats there, despite the fact that the state is historically a stronghold of theirs and despite the President personally intervening in the campaign. Meanwhile, his foreign policy initiatives have not resulted in any progress on the issues in question. In fact, these issues are now more in a state of crisis than they were before, while an unprecedented level of tension vitiates American foreign relations. The State of the Union address in a few days may not hold what would reflect such a direction in the failures of the Obama Administration, unless it adopts a different approach to the structural elements of the crises it faces, at both the domestic and foreign levels. Domestically, the problems of the financial crisis and the healthcare program are most prominent, and they both need to be ratified by Congress, which seems more and more difficult, as the date of midterm congressional elections approaches and populist disputes prevail among its current members seeking reelection. In fact, the two crises coinciding with the midterm elections is creating a problem connected to the fact that any measure taken to control banking would reflect on the funding of candidates, and that any measure to launch the healthcare program would make voters fear new taxes. Thus what the Administration tries to take from one place, it loses in another, which makes it threatened with complete paralysis at the domestic level in case predictions of a strong Republican comeback in Congress turn out to be true. Then any “hope for change”, as per the electoral slogan launched by Obama during his presidential campaign, would be gone. At the foreign level, with the exception of the negotiations to renew the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia, which have not yet ended, Washington finds itself in opposition with all great powers over some issue, from Europe to China through Latin America, whether it is about the environment and the climate, resolving the financial crisis or trade exchanges, not to mention the struggle for political and economic influence. Concerning the hot topics, it has become clear how deep the US's predicament is in Afghanistan, as in Pakistan with its tense relations with India. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a Republican, did not hesitate to criticize the core of US policy in that region and the approach to its problems, starting from the way Pakistan has been dealt with and the failure to establish true reconciliation between Islamabad and New Delhi, one that would ward off the specter of renewed military confrontation between the two neighboring nuclear countries, up to Afghanistan where the Taliban have turned from outlaw terrorist groups to an integral part of the country's social fabric. And with the Obama Administration considering that US military presence in Iraq had fulfilled its aims, and that they should focus on the war against terrorism, the outcome of managing this war seems disastrous, even according to the assessment of US officials themselves, whether at the level of the direct war against those Washington classifies as terrorists all over the world or at that of security measures to prevent any terrorist act. It is noteworthy that the US officials responsible for managing this war are themselves the ones taking charge of uncovering the faults of this method as well as the technical and political reasons for its failure. In our region, from the Gulf (including Iran), through Yemen and up to the Middle East, the failure of the US does not need to be pointed out, especially after Obama himself recognized misestimating what to expect from his initiatives. The one thing amidst all these failures is the fact that the Administration has resorted to the method of “disclosure”, in the style of the last President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, i.e. of admitting to some of the mistakes, misestimates and failed predictions. When then will the Obama Administration move on to “perestroika”, i.e. to comprehensively reconsidering the image and role of the United States, and at least reformulating its foreign policy? And will the State of the Union address include the features of such an American perestroika?
