The Time-Bombs Ticking Under Obama's Presidency

Mr President-Elect, that was the easy part. Yes, becoming the first black President by a landslide - winning even the former capital of the Confederate slaveocracy, Virginia - didn't seem like a stroll at the time. But now there is a pile of ticking time-bombs waiting in your in-tray and you have to defuse each one of them, fast. Welcome to the next four years of your life.

Some of the challenges that define the Obama years will be impossible to guess at today. Who foresaw the rise of Hitler in 1932, or 9/11 in 2000? But the Oval Office desk is also littered with grenades we can already see.

Time-bomb One: A collapsing economy. The US economy is freezing like it's 1929 - and you have to decide now which wing of the Democratic Party can put it right. To your right, the Robert Rubin wing will tell you to concentrate on cutting the deficit, bailing out only the biggest, and batten down for the storm. They have the backing of the super-rich and their institutions. To your left, the populist wing will tell you to spend big - on healthcare, renewables and infrastructure - in order to revive the economy. They want a new New Deal - and they have the backing of most ordinary Americans. In the first year of the Clinton administration, the wrong side won, and Rubin was unleashed to deregulate the banks. You need to make a better choice. Make yourself Franklin Roosevelt Mark II. Which leads us to...

Time-bomb Two: A collapsing climate. You have become President at a crucial moment in the planet's history. We are close to the climatic Point of No Return: a two degree rise in temperatures, which will trigger an unravelling of all natural processes. The last two Presidents killed Kyoto. You can save its successor, which has to be negotiated before 2012. But that means you need now to bring the US - the worst per capita emitter by far - into line. The economic crisis gives you the perfect opportunity. Stimulate the economy by launching the transfer to a low-carbon economy: paint your New Deal green. Big Oil will fight back hard and dirty - but every human being needs you to fight back.

Time-bomb Three: America's wars. Since some 70 percent of Iraqis want the US troops out now, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be happy to negotiate your departure. The bigger danger will be in Afghanistan, where you say "success is crucial." What does success mean in a country which has never been under the central control of Kabul and has repelled invaders from Alexander the Great to the British and Soviet Empires?

You have to begin by doing something the Bush administration was incapable of: acknowledge that America's power to reshape reality has limits. You cannot clear Talibanism out of Afghanistan by force. They are too large, the land is too impenetrable, and the harder you try with brute force, the more Afghans you drive towards them. The US commitment to destroying the country's opium poppy crop super-charges the hate. What country would ever accept foreign forces committed to trashing 60 percent of their economy?

Here's your path out. Buy the opium crop and use it to make painkillers, as the US does in Southern Turkey. Then you would be approaching Afghan peasants not with guns, but cash. Then you will have to do something ugly. You are going to have to negotiate with the Taliban. All Taliban are despicable women-enslaving thugs - but you can't (alas) eliminate them now. No: you need to have a more modest goal. Virtually all intelligence experts agree there is a division between most of the Taliban, who have a local Afghan agenda, and Al Qaeda, who have a global jihadi agenda. You need to break chunks of the Taliban away from al Qaeda, so the jihadis are left isolated - and beatable. The elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai and now even General Petraeus are begging to do this.

You will be accused of appeasement by the right. They'll say you are leaving space for al Qaeda training camps. But if you continue on their preferred path, you won't just be negotiating with parts of the Taliban - you'll be defeated by them as the Afghan population turns irrevocably against you. Then the space for training camps will be larger still - and jihadis will claim victory and fight all the harder everywhere.

And those, Mr President-Elect, are only the starter-issues. You just made history once. You awed the world and our eyes water with optimism. But if humanity is going to get through the swelling crises waiting for us, you are going to have to make history again and again in the next four years - and we, the worried, watching people of the world, will be here pressuring you. This - the longer, harder campaign - has only just begun.

POSTSCRIPT: If you want a sense of how this election is being seen across the world in this euphoric burst, one little anecdote for me says it all. I spent yesterday trawling the shops here in London for Stars and Stripes to decorate my apartment for my Presidential election party - and across the city they were all sold out. One shopkeeper in the East End told me: "For the past eight years we've done a big trade in American flags because people buy them to burn them. This is the first time I can remember people buying them because they actually want to wave them."

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his articles, click here.

Comments

[larry278]

error: Speak should read: Speak to.

[larry278]

Mr Hari: One of the reasons that BHO won the election is that he knew everything you've mentioned in your blog. Speak those who've covered Obama's campaign for the last two years or do an online search of the ECONOMIST & the FT. BHO & they knew very well you've mentioned. You've been remiss on doing research for this blog on HP.

[Emerald1943]

The war in Iraq should not be "Time bomb #3" but instead, first on the list. We continue to pour billions of dollars into this illegal, immoral war every month! In order to get the economy back on track, we need to get out now! It's time for the Iraqi government to step up! They have had long enough!!!

And I would have to agree about the rule of law! Impeachment should never be "off the table"! Our leaders lied to us...and thousands have died! When do we see some justice here???

[officewag]

J Hari, the view from a distant twitBrit is not needed here...specially those cracks about the slaveocracy, which Britain helped supply with slaves til 1883, after all. Your laundry list reads a little thin.
DOn't forget there are a couple months left for Duh-bya to do his worst and pay off those he owes. As for Obama--
"Free or deport prisoners from Guantanamo" should be one of the first things to tick off the list..and Constitutional Law expert Obama surely will work with congress and not try to expand the executive, the way Cheney neo-conned the role of the president's office.
Your opium suggestions are naive in the extreme (The US used to do that in Mexico once upon a time, but where more profit is possible, the criminals edge out the govt subsidised. They double deal. Demand is more the engine for heroin and poppy trade, not supply.)

[FearlessFreep]

Obama's policy for dealing with climate change has to include a carbon tax. Sure, it isn't the whole solution, but it's an inevitable part of the solution. If he doesn't do it he isn't taking the problem seriously.

[NoTrollZone]

Absolutely spot on. Time to nip this "move to the center" nonsense in the bud. Been there and done that, and look where it got us.

[UnknownSoldier]

Obama should name Romney as an economic adviser possibly even a Treasury Sec. Romney has experience at cleaning up Republican messe

[changeishere08]

I just love the laundry list of things Obama "needs to do" under his presidency. Where was this list when Bush was president? Oh, that must be that pesky double standard rearing it's ugly head again. Darn it! Who am I to expect the SITTING PRESIDENT for the last EIGHT YEARS who SCREWED UP THIS NATION to actually DO THE WORK!

*incredibly snark*

[kissy kai]

YOU ARE ON POINT

[DuPageDem]

Good list, but you forgot the most important: Restore The Rule Of Law. All the other problems stem from this. President Obama needs to immediately sign a stack of executive orders restoring habius corpus, posse comitatus and the Fourth Ammendment; dismantling NORTHCOM, shutting Gitmo and banning all torture techniques; voiding Bush orders and signing statements; as well as cleaning out the Department of Justice and ordering immediate arrest of those who have ignored congressional subpeonas. Addressing the economy, the wars and climate are vital, but secondary to this. Rule of law goes to the foundation of our country, our democracy and our standing in the world.

[DivergentMary]

YES, YES, YES, YES, and YES!!!!!

(from a Will County Dem)

[harriscrl3]

It makes the campaign two years seem like a walk in the park. Yes you've won the Presidency but what have you won really a HUGE MESS that you have to clean up. But you know what the intersting thing is with so much challenges come great rewards if you are successful. I think Obama is the type who is not afraid of challenges who welcomes it. He also has the intelligence and intellectual capacity to deal with them.

Carol

[certainot]

everything thinking sane people will try on these issues will be much harder as long as the GOP retains the biggest soapbox in the country. the disaster that followed reagan and got us here would not have been possible if reagan did not kill the Fairness Doctrine. it gave the right wing of the GOP the biggest soapbox in the country. that coordinated uncontested repetition has been used to take lee attwater's techniques national and has turned the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Limbaugh. as long as that monopoly remains largely unnoticed and unchallenged, real bipartisanship and democracy will continue to be nearly impossible and progressives will continue to play politics without a front line. i hope progressive analysts and strategists and politicians will soon begin to give the talk radio monopoly the attention it deserves.

[Aaror]

Instead of trying to beat them in one area, find another they can't enter (or won't). Lets face it, from Larry Flynt to Howard Stern, the Repubs go after women's body parts, and here we are, the party of women, not taking advantage of that.
We have an internet filled with Porn, beautiful young women who want to spread political messages, and a net savvy democratic party, if we can't make a huge free advertising situation that the Repubs can't match, we are just stupid.

[certainot]

but that's the ongoing centuries-old battle. the right relies on sexual repression to fuel its authoritarian absolutist impulses. sex is good for selling product and causing frustration, which makes people do conservative stuff.

[Sundialsvc4]

I notice that all three of these "time bombs" are, in fact, linked.

"America's economy" is actually not really "collapsing," but it can no longer (and of course, should no longer) attempt to bear the weight of High Crime. These financial crimes are, of course, what drives the Military Industrial Complex, which also is what pushes the nation into 1,500+ military bases and wars in every theater of command.

This uber-riche mentality considers everything, including the environment itself, to be "something to be used." And money, in the purest and abstract sense, is the goal. Any dumping is okay. Any swindle is okay. Anything the President writes as a footnote below his signature is law. And oh yeah, "impeachment is off the table."

At the bottom of it all: "High Crime." And that does not mean just "the Prez" and "the Veep." As the writers of the Constitution observed, "any civil officer" can do it, and it's really to be defined as "a crime that is committed or that is facilitated through and by the powers of their office, the plaintiffs being The American People." These crimes are real, the harm is incalculable, and the higher up they are, the more millions of people they swindle ... or kill ... or maim.

If this law-professor will make the clear CEO's-statement that henceforth, such crime will not only not be tolerated but will be purged, then we WILL have "a new century" at last.

[Tim303]

Thank you Mr. Hari. Keep on putting your writing on Huffington Post. I love what you do in The Independent when I visit London. Help us Yanks to see and think. The final paragraph is much appreciated.

[owlsocks]

I'm in England too (Somerset) and people are actually smiling at my American accent today!

Time-bombs or not, with his intellect and our goodwill, he is certainly up to the job.

His ability to compromise when needed, and not compromise when he really shouldn't, will be the most important thing.

:-)

[Kyle-F]

A brilliant write-up, Mr. Hari. And I couldn't agree with you more on the 3 time bombs in place. How the incoming administration defuses these, now that remains to be seen. I think I'm going to print this article and review it six months from now and see where we stand on these issues.