Vagaries and price of global leadership - II

Indeed, President Barack Obama is left with no other choice, but to pick up the slack in the Afghan war, owing to the 9/11 treacherous debacle by Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda.

The most powerful position on earth is the US presidency, but also the hottest and most uneasy seat there is. As former President Harry Truman said, "the buck stops here" stresses the ultimate responsibility. The US presidency defines any sitting president, not the other way around.

Perhaps, any problem of universal import that can not be solved by an American president, may be beyond solution by any other world leader. Hence, while Obama originally had a dovish mind set, current events and vagaries of universal affairs so demand hawkish inevitability, and change has to be adopted. To quote an eminent writer, "the event(s) teaches us in its hour".

World history in the past century had thrust USA into an inescapable role beyond shirking. At the turn of the 20th century, Europe was embroiled by the 1914 World War I. Perhaps, if Pres. Woodrow Wilson had not intervened with the American expeditionary forces, the European geography, especially Eastern Europe, could have had been radically altered.

Events leading to WW II saw deranged Nazi fuhrer Adolf Hitler first overran Poland and on the verge of imminent conquest of Eastern Europe, that Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt led USA in rescue. In fact, entire Europe, including England at the mercy of nightly raids of German Luttwaffe and V2 rockets – except the Russian bear undisturbed because of the heavy winter – had been tottering to the Nazi’s relentless putsch. In almost pathetic helplessness, even the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots’ heroism was put to an acid test that led Winston Churchill to pay tribute to the RAF, thus: "Never so few have done so much for so many".

Had Uncle Sam not been inexorably thrust into World War II, not only Europe and outlying continents’ maps could have been radically delineated, but also mankind’s ideology. What with the likes of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and later, such Russian bears as Josef Stalin and Nikita Kruschev who in turn followed suit during the Cold War.

Asia as well, could have been swept by Japan’s "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere", hegemony, including the Philippines had not Gen. Douglas MacArthur fulfilled his "I shall return" promise. Likewise, if not for USA and MacArthur during the Korean War, the Chinese Red Army could have crossed the Yalu River to sweep the entire Korean peninsula.

Many of the present generation worldwide have sneeringly assailed Uncle Sam, like twitting him as "the ugly American", the unwanted "world policeman", or the obnoxious "global peacemaker". It’s not that USA policies and actions have been picture perfect, nonetheless, in the final reckoning, Uncle Sam has acquitted himself in the overall balance scale.

Take for instance the still pestering Somalian piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean – and increasingly stretched its depredations beyond – victimizing world maritime shipping. Somalian piracy compels various governments to escort their ocean-going vessels with their naval forces, but the Somalian pirates are still extant.

The Somalian government disorganized and inutile, USA intervention can stomp out the abusive pirates, should President Obama and the US Congress take a direct hand.

But the most serious international concern that until now USA appears to be indecisive, despite the magnitude of the problem that threatens mankind is the climate change or global warming. Until lately when China has taken over because of its fast industrial development with its coal-fed factories, USA used to be the leading carbon gas emitting nation in the world. The expectations of a defining moment among world leaders in the recent Copenhagen Summit didn’t come at all because the conferees haven’t reached any final binding agreement.

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