Ayoon Wa Azan (President Congeniality looks for a fight)

Perhaps one brief phrase may help explain Barack Obama’s thinking better than any book. After he took the presidential oath at the White House on Sunday, he turned to his family and said, “I did it” – that is, he succeeded or achieved what he wanted by being reelected. So it remains for us to see what he will do in the next four years. There is a belief that I share which holds that the consensus president in the past four years will be replaced by a confrontational one in his second term, having become free of the shackles he imposed on himself to secure his reelection. I thus read headlines like “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” and “President Congeniality Talks Tough.” And talking tough is exactly what he did during a press conference on January 14, when he threatened the Republicans if they did not change their attitude on the ongoing financial crisis, and said that he would not negotiate with Republicans who he said were holding "a gun at the head of the American people" over raising the country's debt ceiling. A week later, Obama took the presidential oath to begin his second term, and was sworn in again on Capitol Hill in the presence of U.S. legislators and hundreds of thousands of Americans. Although his speech was brief, and did not last for more than 15 minutes, he continued to challenge the Republicans by voicing his support for gay marriage, an issue that was never addressed by any president before him in an inauguration speech. Obama also spoke about tackling climate change, and said that he wants to reduce carbon emissions, and to bridge the gap between rich and poor. He even compared the gay rights movement to the civil rights movement in the sixties, when African Americans fought for equal rights. The Republicans rejected every single proposal put forward by the president in the past four years, and the Americans paid the price. Now, the president seems confident about his ability to the extent that he spoke about expanding the social welfare program passed in 2010, and which was strongly opposed by the Republicans who sought to repeal it. On Monday, the president, his family and many dignitaries went to the Washington National Cathedral to pray. But the agenda of his next four years in the White House will become clearer when he delivers his State of the Union address in about three weeks. Whether Obama chooses appeasement once again, or comes out looking for a fight, the issues that need addressing are too many, and it will be impossible for him to resolve them all. He might succeed with some, and fail in others or neglect them altogether. First there is the ongoing financial crisis, and a new round of negotiations with the Republicans to raise the debt ceiling. If no agreement is reached before March 27, the U.S. federal agencies will shut down since they will have no money to pay salaries. Then there is also the issue of gun control laws, climate change and immigration. Outside, Obama is faced with limited leverage over Iran, North Korea, Egypt, Pakistan, and Israel, along with Syria, Algeria, Mali and Afghanistan. I believe that the U.S. right, from the Republican Party to the Israel lobby and the neoconservative warmongers and advocates of American empire, will seek to distract the president with many internal and external battles to prevent him from focusing on the Palestinian issue and the two-state solution. The U.S. financial crisis is sufficient to distract the president away from every other problem. Meanwhile, Iran, or even North Korea, cannot pose a real threat to the U.S. today or even in a hundred years. I therefore find that the position on Iran and its nuclear program is one hundred percent Israeli-motivated, while terrorism in northwest Africa is a primarily regional and European problem. The president remains in a strong position in his second term, especially since the Republicans are divided. The last minute agreement over the fiscal cliff for instance, was among the reasons why House Speaker John Boehner found opposition from some members of his party for his reelection bid. This is while the Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saw in his home state of Connecticut ads attacking him and asking, “Mitch McConnell: Whose side are you on?” Add to this the fact that Barack Obama detests Benjamin Netanyahu, and we will have more reasons to expect that the president who is returning for a second term will find time to address the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and seek to embarrass the Israeli prime minister and increase his isolation, without this meaning that he will achieve any solution that every U.S. president before had failed to bring about. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.