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As the Democratic
convention opened, Obama has begun to look
vulnerable and his rival the Republican
senator, John McCain has managed to
resurrect himself as a credible candidate.
Since his hugely successful visit to
Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe,
Obama has been losing ground to McCain.
Having enjoyed near double digit leads in
many national polls all these weeks, Obama
now finds trailing for the first time in
some of them. The Reuters-Zogby poll this
week shows McCain leading Obama by nearly
five percentage points.
A number of factors have helped McCain. One
of them has been the return of foreign
policy to the centre-stage of the public
discourse after Moscow’s recent
muscle-flexing in Georgia. McCain’s earlier
bluster on Moscow — he had called for the
expulsion of Russia from the Group of Eight
industrialised countries — that was
dismissed as right wing extremism now looks
prescient to many.
The Republicans have always enjoyed a huge
edge over Democrats in their perceived
ability to handle national security issues.
The unpopularity of the Iraq war, however,
seemed to neutralise this traditional
Republican advantage. Obama naturally made a
virtue of his consistent opposition to the
Iraq war.
The Republican line that Obama is no more
than an “inexperienced celebrity-politician,
smitten with his own press clippings” has
begun to bestir the enduring popular
anxieties about the Democratic candidate.
Obama will hope the convention next week
will help him bounce back.
On Pakistan, however, it is Obama who has
articulated a tougher line than McCain. For
months Obama had argued that America’s
success in Afghanistan will depend upon
forcing fundamental changes in Pakistan. He
had demanded that the US should bomb
terrorist bases in Pakistan, if Islamabad
was not willing to act against the Taliban
and the al-Qaida. The resignation of Pervez
Musharraf as the president of Pakistan has
allowed Obama to reaffirm that his judgement
is better than that of McCain.
In a speech, Obama said McCain “had refused
to join my call to take out Osama bin Laden
across the Afghan border and instead spent
years backing a dictator in Pakistan who
failed to serve the interests of his own
people”. Obama added that “the departure of
President Musharraf has given the US an
opportunity to move away from a foreign
policy focused on one person and to a
‘Pakistan policy’.
The renewed international uncertainty facing
the United States has begun to loom over
Obama’s imminent choice of a Vice
Presidential running mate. Until recently it
was widely presumed that a high flying Obama
just needed to pick up a ‘boring white man’
for his ticket. While deliberations in the
Obama inner circle on the vice presidential
choice are closely guarded, there is growing
speculation that national security
experience might be the major factor in
shaping the final decision — likely to be
announced soon.
That turns the focus onto a few candidates,
most of whom India know well. The front
runner, at least in the media assessment, is
Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware.
Biden is currently the chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Getting
another political insider onto the ticket
might darken Obama’s bright promise of
changing the way Washington works.
Biden has been one of the strongest
supporters of the Indo-US nuclear deal. He
shepherded the passage of the Hyde Act
during 2006 and has promised to work hard to
get the final Congressional nod once the
deal arrives in Washington after it is
approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Others on Obama’s list — former Senator Sam
Nunn and former Energy Secretary, Bill
Richardson — are quite familiar to New
Delhi. If, defying all conventional wisdom,
Obama chooses Senator Hillary Clinton as his
running mate, New Delhi might be quite
enthused. |
