Obama faces the most serious challenge to US domination

From: http://www.ft-ci.org/

Thursday, November 13, 2008
US: Transition and Crisis
Obama is facing the most serious challenge to US authority
By Claudia Cinatti

One week after his election victory, Obama has begun to outline the key figures of his team, that will lead the transition in the little more than two months that remain before his taking office as President next January 20.

The names that have emerged are in tune with the strategy of lowering the expectations of "change" that his election caused and indicate that Obama will turn to the traditional establishment of imperialist policy to face up to the most serious challenge that has confronted the United States since the end of the Second World War.

Domestically, the country is going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. To the alarming figures that have been announced in the past week about the state of the economy was added Paulson's confession that the bailout package and buying "toxic assets" from banks has not really worked, and that it is necessary to change the strategy of government policy to revitalize the economy, which led to the nth fall of the Wall Street stock market. Internationally, Obama has still not found the solution to the two Bush-era wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- and he will have to wrestle with the more general situation of instability in the Middle East, and, probably, with new conflicts that will arise in the meantime, of which the war between Russia and Georgia was only an early indicator.

In addition to this, there is the demand by France, China and other countries that a new international financial structure be established, as French President Sarkozy requested, a new "Bretton Woods" that would set up clear rules and permit more regulated economic functioning. In contrast with popular expectations by young people, workers, blacks and Latinos, who voted for Obama, and millions in the world that were hoping for "change," the imperialist bourgeoisie is hoping that the new face of US leadership will have a beneficial effect on its interests and that Obama's presidency can partially reverse the decline of US hegemony.

Towards another New Deal?

One of the big tests that Obama's administration will be subjected to will be the policy that it determines to face up to the profound recession that has already settled on the US. It should be enough to recall that the Big Three automakers, Chrysler, General Motors and Ford, the icons of US capitalism, are in serious problems, and that GM and Ford reported billion-dollar losses, $4.2 billion and $2.9 billion, respectively, in the last quarter.

Obama is avoiding acting like the new US President, hoping that Bush and Congress -- which is also resuming -- are the ones who will take some of the necessary measures. As part of this strategy, Obama will not attend the next meeting of the G-20, to take place on November 15.

In the November 7 press conference, the same day that the unemployment figures became known, Obama said he agreed with the need to implement a fiscal stimulus plan, to help reactivate the economy, extend unemployment insurance, that unemployed workers only receive for six months, reduce taxes on low-income households, and pass a government assistance package for the three automakers, which he repeated to Bush during the transition meeting they had on November 10. Up to now, Obama's economic policy, in addition to supporting Paulson's plan for bailing out the bankers, has been very moderate, and during the campaign he only promised some $60 billion, to be allocated between public works and social assistance.

The partisans of another New Deal consider that this policy is insufficient for facing the crisis. For instance, the Nobel laureate in economics, Paul Krugman, calculates that the stimulus package should be at least 4% of GDP, that is, some $600 billion. Last Monday, in his column in the daily New York Times, he advised Obama to show "audacity" in public spending. Comparing the current situation with that of the Great Depression, this economist concludes that although it is true that the New Deal failed to take the economy out of the Depression, this was owing to Roosevelt's excessive "prudence," and he advises Obama to "figure out how much help he thinks the economy needs, then add 50 percent," given that "It’s much better, in a depressed economy, to err on the side of too much stimulus than on the side of too little." Leaving aside the fact that Obama will become President with a monumental government debt, swollen by the bailout for the banks, which makes this "bold policy" difficult at least, one must say that Roosevelt did not lack "audacity" in government spending. This became clear when, faced with the failure of the New Deal, he turned towards war industry, with the enormous government investment that involved, which finally took the US economy out of the Depression, and, after the war, guaranteed decades of US dominance in the capitalist world. That is, the New Deal was the first step in a series of policies to protect the interests of the US imperialist bourgeoisie.

The big lesson that arises from the New Deal is that the political representatives of the bourgeoisie defend class interests that are opposed to those of workers and the oppressed minorities and that without touching the property of big capital and the enormous power of corporations (as Roosevelt failed to do with the property of the "60 families" that owned the US), sooner or later, capitalism will lead to new catastrophes.

Iraq, Afghanistan and foreign policy

Since his nomination as a presidential candidate, Obama has been surrounded by former Secretaries of State, like Brzezinski and M. Albright, analysts and military men from the "realist" group of the US imperialist foreign policy establishment. Their strategy is to repair the image of the United States in the world, an image seriously damaged by the unilateralism of the Bush years, and in that way get more cooperation from traditional allies and even from new actors, to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the least costly way possible and face the multiple challenges that the US will confront in the coming period.

In Iraq, on December 31 this year, the UN mandate that has covered the presence of imperialist troops expires, and tense negotiations are underway between the Iraqi government and the US over the terms of a possible agreement for extending the mandate. In addition, provincial elections, that are very important for the balance of forces among the different Shiite and Sunni factions, will be held in January.

The situation of NATO troops in Afghanistan has been seriously deteriorating since 2006. Unlike Iraq, where negotiations with Iran and the agreement with Sunni groups has permitted lowering the number of attacks against the occupation troops, in Afghanistan this year the number of attacks by the Taliban against NATO troops is the highest since 2001. The Taliban has recovered its ability to fight, as well as a big social base. President Karzai, a US puppet, is completely unpopular, and the conflict has spread to Pakistan.

Bush's policy was to pressure the Pakistani government that, after three months of fighting in which US troops participated, launched a brutal military attack in the border region of Bajaur to try to recover territory still under control of the Taliban and other tribal forces and prevent them from advancing on Peshawar. At the same time, it is attempting to find "reconcilable" groups among the Taliban and other hostile forces, to recreate something like the policy of agreement with the Sunni resistance in Iraq.

Obama has changed the war in Afghanistan -- and the conflict in Pakistan -- into the priority of imperialist policy. His strategy is to diminish the presence of troops in Iraq and concentrate the military and diplomatic effort on getting a victory against Al Qaeda.

According to the daily Washington Post, "Obama's administration is planning to explore a more regional strategy for the war in Afghanistan -- including possible conversations with Iran, that has played a mixed role on the eastern border of Afghanistan in the last few years, at times cooperating with the aims of the United States and at times aiding the extremists."

Obama's chances of getting greater cooperation from the NATO allies could be superior to those of the Bush administration, although at the moment no one has given indications of wanting to make a greater commitment. As for the "enemies," Obama has said he is for resuming the dialogue with Syria and with Iran, since his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan depend in large measure on cooperation from Iran. Many are speculating that the fall in oil prices will affect the popularity of Iranian President Ahmadinejad and that a leadership more inclined to negotiating with the United States will come out of the next elections, that take place next year. However, the openly pro-Israeli position that Obama has adopted, confirmed by the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as a central figure of his team, could make for the failure of this policy, on which a large part of the planned foreign policy "change" is based.

The profound economic crisis and the questioning of US authority by different social actors will be the coordinates of the next administration. The oppressed peoples of the world have nothing good to look forward to from Obama's presidency; he will be the new face of US imperialism and will seek to defend the interests of the capitalists and their corporations.