The American people made history yesterday, sending the first Black American to the White House. The landslide victory of Barack Obama was a decisive vote for change, and proof that America was just as tired as much of the rest of the world in the confrontational policies of the administration of George W. Bush.
How much change Obama can make, especially in the Bush White House’s conduct of the war on terrorism, will be quickly put to the test. Though the war has earned America global opprobrium, the situation in Iraq has improved in the past few months following the surge in US troop deployment. International fatigue over America’s tendency to go it alone is no guarantee that Washington will not do the same thing when its interests are threatened and the global community is paralyzed by a chronic inability to reach a consensus in responding to a credible threat.
The terrorist threat will not go away with the departure of Bush. As Vice President-elect Joe Biden himself has predicted, Obama is likely to be tested by America’s enemies soon after he assumes the presidency. But the global goodwill that has accompanied Obama’s rise to power will undoubtedly make it easier for Washington to wage this war.
An equally pressing concern, which Obama is expected to address immediately, is the financial meltdown. Most analysts see the US economy worsening in the coming months, regardless of the outcome of the elections, and the global economy is expected to contract at least until the end of 2009. With the federal deficit approaching $1 trillion by yearend, the US government’s capability for economic stimulation is limited. Obama won on the wings of this crisis; expectations are high that he will quickly put the US economy back on track, and thereby pull up the rest of the world.
Obama will enjoy a honeymoon period of a few months. His work is made easier by a long American tradition of gracious concession in the face of defeat; Obama’s Republican rival John McCain swiftly congratulated “the next president of a country that we both love.” But party intramurals are expected to resume in earnest. The Democrats’ victory celebrations will be tempered by the reality that Obama is inheriting a country in crisis.