How Obama Can Win the World's Trust

Though the euphoria surrounding Barack Obama's election last week as President-elect has not yet begun to subside, it is already time to recognise that the most important challenge facing the next US president is to restore America's standing in the eyes of the world. A new president must reinvent the US as a country that listens, that engages with others, and that has, in the famous phrase from the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, ''a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.''

That is, of course, easier said than done, even if the mere fact of Obama's election has already provided a huge public relations boost to the United States. Reading the Arab press in the week after his election has been particularly impressive: so many columnists across the Middle East have openly scorned America's Arab critics, pointing to Obama's election as proof of the critics' ignorance and of America's astonishing capacity to re-invent itself. But there are a few useful rules the new administration would be well advised to follow.

The first is to stop acting and sounding as if Washington's is the only way of seeing the world. Bush's famous ''you're either with us or against us'' approach typified an attitude that makes all disagreement with the US administration illegitimate or ''anti-American.''

Americans must learn not to define ''anti-Americanism'' so broadly that they convert every critic into an enemy. (One of my favourite anecdotes, though sadly almost certainly apocryphal, concerns Nehru and John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state in the 1950s and a famous critic of non-alignment -- ''Neutrality between good and evil,'' he memorably intoned about those who failed to take sides against godless Communism, ''is itself evil.'' Dulles allegedly asked Nehru, ''Are you with us or against us?'' to which Nehru replied, ''Yes!'' In other words, we would be ''with'' the US or against it, as we judged appropriate on the merits of each issue.)

An Obama administration, led by a man who has lived abroad and traveled extensively, must recognise that foreigners approach global problems with a different set of assumptions and experiences -- and that they might have different priorities that Washington must learn to respect. This would be a healthy contrast to the Bush years: after all, when they were elected in 2000, Dick Cheney had had more heart attacks (four) than George W Bush had had foreign trips.

Of course, foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America -- from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America. That's why ''anti-Americanism'' is a meaningless term: many people who love a great deal about America and dislike some of the policies of its government are often wrongly dismissed by politicians in the US as anti-American.

In fact, many of the people who are most considered anti-American would love to partake of the American dream: the unspoken slogan of many protesters outside US embassies abroad is really: ''Yankee go home, but take me with you.''

Accepting this, Washington, in keeping with the Obama approach, should overtly and visibly demonstrate its openness to the needs and priorities of the rest of the world. The new administration must show that, despite its understandable internal preoccupations, America -- still the world's richest country by far -- will never forget its responsibilities to the well-being of the planet. Foreigners can't help feeling dismayed when they read that 65% of the elected members of a recent US Congress had never held a passport.

They are terrified of Americans who think all the answers to all the world's problems can be found in America. As part of this openness, the US should work to promote international solutions and multilateral institutions to implement them, working with the UN and an expanded G-8. It is essential that Washington never again shows the Bush administration's disdain for the opinions of the rest of the world.

At the same time, America has no need to act as if it has nothing to teach the rest of the world. The best way to do so is to revive America's finest traditions. Washington must stop the Bush administration practices that have repudiated the values for which America has long stood. A good shortlist to start with would be to close down Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, abjure torture and rendition, prosecute Blackwater's killings of civilians, and vow that America will never conquer its enemies by behaving like them.

It's important to accept that these mistakes were made, and that ''the Ugly American'' was not merely the title of a novel. After the errors and missteps of the ''war on terror,'' America, in keeping with its optimistic President-elect, must again be a land inspired by hope, not impelled by fear.

The new president must show in word and deed that he recognises the world has changed. An America that adjusts graciously from being the world's CEO to its chairman of the board, gently nudging a set of independent directors whose autonomy it respects, is an America that once again could be a shining beacon on the hill for the rest of us.

Almost a year ago, the commentator Andrew Sullivan wrote in The Atlantic:

''At a time when America's estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind's spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may seem indispensable.

''We may in fact have finally found that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton told us about. Its name is Obama.''

(Originally published in The Times of India, November 16, 2008)

Comments

[NationalTreasure]

+Ms. David:

the auto industry had lots of assistance from congress, the republicans and Reagan
when Reagan becam president he and the republicans with the aid of quite a number of Democrats enacted legislation that eviscerated the energy and environmental regulations of the Carter administration which called for higher fuel standards and better emissions controls

and congress also created a special tax deduction for folks who purchased the gas guzzeling trucks and mini vans

[cdnbcn]

Okay America, it's your attic dwelling half brother Canada here,

Lets Talk,

Meet me at Camera Three....

... With this whole regaining international respect thin, you're on the right track, but it's not just up to Obama, that's one part of the equation.

here's the other part, and it's some tough talk, so grab a couple cookies.

The next time any of you travel to other countries;

don't laugh at the different kind of money
don't start speaking louder when someone can't understand you. try enunciating (or a phrasebook)
don't complain that "It's not like home" or turn up your nose at a custom that you deem "uncivilized"

Sure, it's not how you do it, but it's how some do it, and even if you don't understand why, they probably do it that way for a reason.

do ask about local customs
do try new types of food
do inquire on local customs

in other words, it's someone else's house. Please be respectful.

and until you do, please take our flag off of your bags. There's a reason it's respected around the world, and you're giving it a bad name.

Thanks!
Canada

[nochange]

what are you talking about canada and the us are the same

[nochange]

ummmm maybe if he stops hiring the old clinton admin......we might believe him

[KoolBreez]

1. Most countries don't think about the US as much as Americans think they do.

2. The US Presidents don't know their place. They have no idea that they have no jusrisdiction outside our borders.

3. Andrew Sullivan is a day late and a dollar short. It took him years to see what was obvious to most of the world.

[Clavis]

"An America that adjusts graciously from being the world's CEO to its chairman of the board..." What a beautiful metaphor. Thank you for a splendid essay, Mr. Tharoor.

[bayside]

Bring back our bill of rights, innocent until proven guilty, constitution and govern by example like we used to do. Obama has a once in a lifetime chance to repair the damage done by the cons. Hope he doesnt blow it.. If Obama governs by do as I do, not like the cons ,do as I say we will be alright..

[Discomustachio]

I never believed that other countries look up to us. In my personal expereince they don't-not at all. They respect our power but that is largely gone now thanks to 8 years of war and the raping of our economy by the establishment class.

Honestly I see us being like the UK after WWII. Still moderatly respected but seen also as a vanquished foe to much of the world (at least in economic terms).

In 10 years people will openly say "Remember when the Yanks ram the world?"

[ThomH]

The real test of Obama'a foreign policy will be Haiti. I have just been reading Paul Farmer's "the Uses of Haiti", which utterly destroys any notion that all Obama has to do is return to the good old days when the U.S. was respected around the world as a champion of freedom. The history of the U.S. vis a vis Haiti is chilling indeed.

It will be interesting to see what Obama does about relations with this poorest country in the hemisphere, kept so largely through American foreign policy over the past 200 years. At least it will no longer be the case that our policy toward Haiti is dictated by the likes of Jesse Helms, a Haiti-hater who dominated our behavior there for years.

[CactusTom]

America has always been, like many nations, a mixed bag of high ideals and sometimes selfish, shortsighted actions. Currently the nation, along with much of the world, is experiencing the debilitating after affects of unbridled greed. As the say, what goes up must come down, and the coming down part is not much fun.

Perhaps we are moving into one of those rare periods of international inclusiveness in which the nations of the world feel it to be in their best interest to cooperate on a wide range of issues, with the world economy at the top of the list. If that be the case, then America has sent to the head of the line the perfect inclusive personality in the person of Barack Obama to lead some sort of grand, cooperative venture, a 180 degree turn from the Bush years of unending fiasco.