By Alexandre Adler

Translated By Elizabeth J. Newton

August 22, 2008


France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)

On the eve of the Democratic Convention, which should permit Barack Obama to reinvigorate an electoral campaign—very recently, it has shown some signs of weakness—it is perhaps time to consider the matter of Obama in full.

The past twenty years have borne witness, in the U.S., to the ascension of a remarkable black elite, which showed that it no longer had the slightest inferiority complex. Time after time, large organizations have seen the ascent of black Presidents to lead them, without shocks or psychodramas: Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, at least until recently, Time-Warner-AOL in the field of communications, and American Express didn’t suffer from their African-American CEOs. Two exceptional personalities, General Colin Powell and now Condoleezza Rice have, in succession, headed American diplomacy and achieved incontestable successes.

If I were an American voter, I would campaign enthusiastically for the election of Ms. Rice to the White House. The nature of things unfortunately wants it to be not her, but Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who can now become the first black President of the United States.

This is where the dilemma begins: despite the inevitable adjustments and concessions of the still-undecided Centrist electorate, it is clearly apparent that Obama comes from the most closed, the most ideological, and sometimes even the most dangerous left of the Democratic Party. The anecdotes that his duel with Hillary Clinton brought to public attention have no interest other than to show that Obama shares, initially at least, the prejudices and blind spots of the American Left, without any real effort to distance himself from them, and even less to to impart a salutary pedagogy to American public opinion.

Obama is in favor of a reinforced protectionism that would perturb relations with China and explode the common market with Canada and Mexico. Obama remains a partisan of a unilateral non-negotiated retreat from Iraq at the very moment when the situation on the ground is, nevertheless, beginning to improve spectacularly. He was also a partisan of unconditional negotiation with the Iranian regime, as is, and very probably with Palestinian Hamas. His lack of interest in Europe and Asia is patent, and his stances on the issues barely exceed habitual and droning declarations in favor of human rights and an American diplomacy set back on the right track. Even more concerning is the presence, at his side, of ex-Secretary of State, Zbigniew Brzegzinski, who showed his true colors recently in warmly praising the violently anti-Israelian pamphlet of Walt Emearsheimear, who, let’s recall, accuses the Jewish lobby of having negatively influenced the entirety of American Middle East policy. I will even add that the candidate’s excessively Zionist and excessively bellicose—with respect to Pakistan and Afghanistan—declarations during his visit to Israel were too extreme to be sincere and don’t demonstrate more extensive reflection, but rather the most unbridled opportunism.

Despite all this, and, further, despite the great esteem that I have for John McCain, I’m hoping for an Obama victory for three reasons. First and foremost, because, in electing a black President, good or bad, America could achieve a real and necessary exorcism of its body politic. For once in agreement with the formidable Michelle Obama, I believe that African Americans in mass will, in fact, finally be proud of their country, and that the integration so hoped for will have made a decisive and irreversible leap. Then, because alternation must come into play: in a democracy, parties have to follow one another in the position of power, especially today, when the economic model put in place by Reagan has lost its essential justification. The return of the Democrats would signify the indispensable pacification of today’s American society, polarized between extreme wealth and a middle class that has become a bit impoverished. I barely dare to advance the third reason, which is a bit perverse.

The small eclipse of American influence that the Presidency of Obama (just like that of Clinton before him) would risk provoking would also be an unexpected opportunity for Europe to finally assume its adult responsibilities, exactly as Nicolas Sarkozy was able to do in the Georgian crisis, by knowing how to profit from the inaction of the Bush administration, which was paralyzed between two opposing impulses.

I don’t believe that Obama will elicit an American renaissance on every front, but I’m sure that he will provoke Europe to a renewed empowerment and rapprochement with Russia. Of all the reasons to hope for a Democratic victory, this one is perhaps the least admissible, but it’s not the least.