President Obama: Is the United States ready?

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MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov) - A person of mixed race with a name that reminds Americans of their main enemies would need a lot of luck to be nominated as a candidate for president of the United States.

This is what comes to mind when you think of Barack Hussein Obama, 45, a Democrat representing Illinois in the Senate.

Obama, who joined the presidential race on February 10, 2007, talks about his name quite openly, in a manner than wins thousands of supporters.

He said he used to be called Alabama or Osama, and his middle name really is Hussein, which in Arabic means "small and beautiful." But then, Americans seldom use middle names anyway, and, as Shakespeare put it, "what's in a name?"

The main thing is that he, the son of an economist from Kenya and an American from Kansas, now draws bigger crowds than the Rolling Stones.

"The fact that someone like me can attract a crowd like this shows that this country yearns for something new and different," he said on one occasion.

According to some pollsters, 62% of Americans say they are ready for an African-American in the White House.

The Senator from Illinois became the talk of the nation when he made a brilliant speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, where he said America was a much more complicated country than the one portrayed by "the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes." It appeared that the country was ready to step over the imaginary fence dividing the Republican elephant from the Democratic donkey and unite to turn its hopes into reality.

One of the biggest of these hopes is an honorable withdrawal from Iraq that lives up to America's responsibility to the future of the Middle East.

Obama later incorporated that idea in his Iraq War Deescalation Act of 2007. "Our troops have performed brilliantly in Iraq, but no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else's civil war," Obama said.

He proposed that the Bush administration should commence redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007 with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008.

However, the plan is not as black-and-white as it may seem at first glance.

It allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism, and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. It also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met and that the suspension is in the national security interest of the United States.

In other words, Obama retains the right to follow any possible scenario.

He has not proposed anything new. His plan is consistent with the ideas of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, and with those of many war critics. Why has his proposal so outraged his opponents then, and why has the other side praised the idea now that it has been expressed by an African-American newcomer in the Senate?

The first salvo was delivered in Australia, whose prime minister, John Howard, said: "If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."

Time magazine called the Illinois Senator "America's hottest political phenomenon," and TV hosts rushed to invite him to their talk shows.

Obama accepts criticism and praise equally coolly, which means that he knows his worth.

He said about Howard: "If he is ... [so enthusiastic] to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq" to complement the 1,400 troops Australia already has there.

As to his sudden popularity, Obama said he was flattered by the amount of attention he is receiving, though also concerned, and that it speaks more about America than about himself. He probably meant that the country is ready for a radical change, including the most unusual presidential election in its history.

It is difficult to say exactly which of Obama's qualities attract American voters most. Some say he looks like a young John Kennedy and has the same charisma. Like JFK, the Illinois Senator is both glamorous and modest.

Others like him because he does not pretend to speak for Black America. He seldom quotes Martin Luther King, and never speculates about his contribution to King's struggle for civil rights. Like Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell before her, Obama wants to detach his policies from his skin color. Judging by the growth in public sympathy, he has chosen the right path.

A Gallup poll conducted this month estimates his support at 21% as opposed to 40% who would vote for Hillary Clinton, Obama's main rival for the Democratic nomination.

But Hillary should know from her husband's experience that taking the lead at the beginning of the race can be treacherous. Bill Clinton finished the primaries in New Hampshire third, yet spent two terms in the White House.

Hillary is running ahead of Obama on all counts so far. She has the best spin doctors at her disposal, a talent for convincing donors to cough up big money, and a name. Taken together, this could all be described as a political brand.

But the Clinton brand also carries the burden of Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, the failure of the health insurance proposal, and the high-profile Whitewater scandal, concerning the real estate dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, James and Susan McDougal, in the Whitewater Development Corporation.

Barack Obama is free from the burden of the past, maybe too free. His weakest point is his lack of political experience. He will have served less than four years in the Senate by 2008, which has encouraged Vice President Dick Cheney, a political veteran, to say about Obama: "I think people might want a little more experience than that, given the nature of the times we live in."

However, astute Americans may retort that the current political experience in Washington has pushed America into the Iraqi deadlock and the attempt to globalize democracy, and that they do not need this kind of experience. In fact, experience is a drawback rather than an advantage, "given the nature of the times we live in."

Obama will most likely try to play on that paradox by offering Americans "the audacity of hope" (the title of his second book recently published) instead of experience.

I tend to think that the suspense surrounding the 2008 presidential campaign in the U.S. will come to an end next summer, when the Democratic National Convention will have to make the choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, unless Hillary offers Barack the chance to be her running mate.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

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