Obama faces huge tasks and we're not a priority
THAT was a night never to be forgotten, a night full of emotion. Once there was no longer any doubt about the result, we all watched in enchantment as the world's greatest democracy turned its back on eight years of awfulness and confidently, joyfully, dared to hope again.
Another Democratic candidate might have won the election.
Joe Biden, possibly; Hillary Clinton, surely. But no other candidate, of any party, could have matched Barack Obama in character, dignity, and the ability to inspire. This man is a phenomenon.
But the time for rejoicing will be very short.
Tony Blair said that the hand of history lay on his shoulder when he went to Belfast to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement. The toxic legacy of George Bush the Younger lies far more heavily on the shoulder of the US president-elect.
The outgoing president's father, George the Elder, greeted the fall of communism with the proclamation of a "new world order".
That is dust and ashes. American troops are bogged down in two foreign wars. The global financial system is in chaos. America's power and reputation stand at their lowest since World War Two.
Obama's gigantic task now can be simply described. It is nothing less than to restore American greatness.
And it is easier to see how he cannot do that than how he can.
He cannot do it by striking aggressive postures or engaging in ill-prepared military adventures.
At the moment these dangers, happily, appear remote. We can give thanks that he did not lose to John McCain, who showed the hollowness of his much-vaunted experience with his foolish reaction to the Georgian incident. Obama, by contrast, made only two small slips on foreign policy in the course of the campaign.
One was to support an "undivided Jerusalem" as the capital of Israel. It was a grab for Jewish votes -- and almost certainly unnecessary. Most American Jews vote Democrat anyway, and most of them have a shrewd idea what the terms of any future settlement must lay down.
His other slip was to appear to talk, in one of his debates with McCain, of invading Pakistan. It did him no harm, partly, no doubt, because his audience understood him to refer to "hot pursuit", and partly because he is clearly in the right on the related issues of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The key question on Iraq is not a timetable for American troop withdrawal but the political conditions the United States leaves behind.
These cannot be settled without taking Iran's interests into account, which means talking to Tehran. One may deplore the Iranian regime, and especially its naked desire to acquire nuclear weapons, but it has a legitimate interest -- and important allies -- in Iraq.
Merely to mention these questions illustrates the complexity and gravity of the issues the new American president will face. Unless the US prosecutes the war in Afghanistan vigorously, and finds allies to help, either the Taliban will win or the country will descend into anarchy. Pakistan could go the same way unless its lawless north-west frontier is brought under control and the country stabilised. And Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
America's European allies are reluctant to commit more troops to Afghanistan. The British do most of the fighting and suffer most of the casualties. There will be no enthusiasm anywhere for greater involvement in an unpopular war.
Can Obama forge a new relationship with Europe which would cover much wider issues than the search for allies in faraway wars? On several fronts, this question is inseparable from that of European unity.
It is also inseparable, at least as far as our partners to the east are concerned, from fears of Russian adventurism. The Georgian problem was a trifle compared with the possible turmoil in Ukraine. The Putin regime likes to use its control of energy supplies as an instrument. But in Georgia it showed its willingness to use huge military force against a weak opponent.
In this regard, the European Union is notoriously feeble. The present governments of the major countries are conscious of this and anxious to rectify it. Luckily, Germany and France have strong governments; and in Britain, Gordon Brown has lately found unexpected reserves of strength. With a vigorous new government in Washington in place of the dismal Bush administration, the time must be propitious for better US-EU co-operation.
But what of Ireland?
Like other Europeans, we love Obama; but we are nervous, too. What if he implements his policy of changing the tax regime for American multinational companies operating abroad, to our disadvantage? Some of our American friends tell us that we must press ahead with innovation and development of services exports. Easier said than done, in a recession. And in any genuine "new world order", we already start at a disadvantage following our rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.
The expressions of sympathy for our position did not last long. The major continental countries do not hide their impatience. They want the referendum decision reversed, and they want it reversed quickly.
Like Obama, they have to struggle with a global financial crisis.
They also want to create a defence system, and to continue to extend EU membership in the Balkans.
Pleasing Ireland is not among their priorities. It will not be among Obama's priorities either -- his remote Irish roots notwithstanding. Nor was it among the priorities of the "most Irish" of his predecessors.
John F Kennedy was an "imperial president", and proved his steel in the Cuban missile crisis.
Let us hope that Obama will never have to go so close to the brink. But he will be an imperial president, too.
- JAMES DOWNEY
