Africa
Development, Vol. XXXVIII, Nos 1&2, 2013, pp. 171–190
© Council for the
Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2013
(ISSN 0850-3907)
US Foreign Policy under President
Barack
Obama and the Promotion of Multilateralism and the Rule of Law
André Mbata B. Mangu*
Abstract
Five years
ago, in November 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th US president.
Senator Obama’s campaign message had been ‘change’, ‘change we need’, and
‘change we should believe in’. In this post-Cold War era, the US is the only
remaining superpower and the American president the world’s most influential
leader. Accordingly, despite the fact that non-Americans do not participate in
an American presidential election, they are nevertheless interested in its
outcome given the leading role that the US plays in shaping international
relations, for better or worse. This article does not explore US politics. Nor
does it revisit the political economy of imperialism let alone the dependency
discourse. It rather reflects on American foreign policy against the background
of the promises that Senator Obama made in his book, The Audacity of Hope and later during the campaign. It is based on
the hopes that his election raised in the ‘world beyond the American borders’
and aims to pave the way for a critical but fair assessment of US foreign
policy under President Obama.
Résumé
Il
y a plus de quatre ans, en novembre 2008, Barack Hussein Obama a été élu comme
44e président des États-Unis d’Amérique. Le slogan de la
campagne du sénateur Obama était le «changement », « nous avons besoin de
changement », « nous devons croire au changement ». En cette ère post-guerre
froide, les États-Unis d’Amérique restent la seule superpuissance et le
président américain le dirigeant le plus influent au monde. Ainsi, bien qu’ils
ne participent pas à l’élection présidentielle américaine les non-Américains
sont néanmoins intéressés par le résultat de cette élection compte tenu du rôle
de premier plan que les États-Unis d’Amérique jouent dans les relations
internationales, pour le meilleur ou pour le pire. Cet article n’examine pas la
politique américaine. Il ne revisite pas
non plus l’économie politique de
l’impérialisme, encore moins le discours de dépendance. C’est plutôt une
réflexion sur la politique étrangère américaine par rapport aux promesses que
le sénateur Obama a faites dans son ouvrage The
Audacity of Hope et plus tard au cours de sa
campagne. Il se fonde sur les
* Research
Professor, Department of Public, Constitutional and International Law, College
of Law, University of South Africa / Professor, Faculty of Law,
University of Kinshasa.
E-mail: manguamb@unisa.ac.za
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espoirs
suscités par son élection dans le « monde au-delà des frontières américaines »
et vise à ouvrir la voie à une évaluation critique mais juste de la politique
étrangère américaine sous le président Obama.
Introduction
‘Change’ was Barack Obama’s campaign slogan
during the US 2008 presidential election. The American people finally endorsed
his message of change when they elected him their 44th
President.
Senator Barack Obama took the ‘Gospel of change’ to the
rest of the world, especially to Asia and Europe which he visited briefly
before the 2008 election but the message was heard in the remaining parts of
the world, including Africa where Barack Obama’s father was born.
The people and leaders of the rest of the world expected
that unlike under his predecessors, the US under President Obama’s administration
would avoid unilateralism and abide by international law in conducting its
international relations. This would require working through international
organisations instead of undermining them when they did not seem to serve US
interests. The Obama Administration was also expected to privilege dialogue and
peace over war and militarism, invest more in the development of the poorest
nations, and contribute to giving a human face to the monster of globalisation
that mainly worked for the developed countries and their companies while
increasing the number of its victims among the underdeveloped nations and their
peoples. Expectations in Africa were even higher than in any other part of the
world given its close ties to the US African American president whom some
Africans considered a ‘son of Africa’. African people expected ‘change’ in the
US African policy and hoped even against all hope that Africa would be given a
pride of place in US foreign policy under President Obama.
In this post-Cold War era, the US is the only remaining
superpower and the American president the world’s most influential leader.
Accordingly, despite the fact that non-Americans do not participate in an
American presidential election, they are nevertheless interested in its outcome
given the leading role that the US plays in shaping international relations,
for better or worse.
This article does not deal with the US domestic policy
under President Barack Obama. It rather reflects on the American foreign policy
against the background of the promises that Senator Obama made in his famous
book, The Audacity of Hope (Obama
2008) and later during the campaign. It is based on the hopes that his election
raised in the ‘world beyond the American borders’ (Obama 2008: 320-382) which
is revisited. It stresses some principles that were expected to drive ‘change’
and be promoted in US foreign
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policy under Obama’s presidency, namely
multipartyism, international rule of law, dialogue, peace and development.
Senator Obama had also been critical of globalisation and advocated ‘change’ in
US-African policy. The article aims to pave the way for a fair assessment of US
foreign policy under President Obama.
Barack Obama’s ‘World beyond the American
Borders’
Politically, economically and
ideologically, the tendency of different American administrations over the past
decades, especially after the Second World War, has been to push the American
borders as far as possible with a view to extending the American Empire.
To assess US foreign policy under President Obama, it is
critically important to understand the ‘world beyond the American borders’,
where it begins and ends and how to mark out this world which consists of
states, non-state entities, organisations and even individuals (Mangu 2011:
153-157).
Although it was not named, Israel, America’s closest ally,
which is to be protected by all means and at any times, and whose policy should
never be condemned officially, is seen as ‘part of America’ in the minds of
millions of American citizens. Accordingly, Israel can be excluded from the
‘world beyond the American borders’.
Indonesia was the first countrythat Barack Obama named as
part of the ‘world beyond the American borders’ (Obama 2008: 320-330, 375-376,
380-382). Barack Obama used this country as a ‘metaphor’ for the world beyond
the American borders, ‘a world in which globalisation and sectarianism, poverty
and plenty, modernity and antiquity constantly collide’ (Obama 2008: 330). The
Indonesian people therefore expected the US to get involved in more development
activities than in the military ones in their country, in both public and
private relief aid, as the Americans did after the Tsunami that affected the
region (Obama 2008: 376). Indonesia is one of the biggest Muslim countries.
In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama referred
to America as ‘a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews, and Hindus – and
non-believers’ (Obama 2009). Born of a Muslim father and having spent part of
his life outside the US in Indonesia, Obama is certainly the US president who
was supposed to be the closest to the Muslim world. He could better understand
the Muslims and show greater respect for them. Change in this area also
required a divorce from George W. Bush’s policies after 9/11 that contributed
to alienating millions in the Arab and Muslim world rather than approaching
them by labelling them ‘terrorists’.
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President Barack Obama promised the Muslim world that
America would ‘seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual
respect’ (Obama 2009).
After Indonesia, Iraq is the country that attracted more
attention from Senator Obama. Until recently, there were more US troops in Iraq
than in any other country in post-Cold War history. Iraq had been invaded under
Bush’s administration. Most Americans were opposed to the continuation of war
in Iraq. Senator Obama opposed war in Iraq as ‘a dumb war, a rash war, a war
based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics’ (Obama
2008: 348). His earlier opposition to this unpopular war was one of the first
arguments that Senator Obama provided as evidence of his leadership in foreign
policy against McCain who had reportedly voted for Bush more than 80 percent of
the time and supported his foreign policy in the Senate. Senator Obama first
visited Iraq in January 2006, almost five years after 9/11. What the Iraqi
people expected from the Obama’s administration was the fulfilment of his
electoral promise to withdraw American troops within 10 to 16 months and to
contribute to reconstruction and national reconciliation in this country.
Having been part of the problem for their unilateral invasion of Iraq in
violation of international law for bypassing the UN, the US had to be part of
the solution to Iraqi problems.
After the elimination of Saddam Hussein, Americans were
expected to keep on providing development assistance to Iraq and reconcile with
the majority of the Iraqi people who opposed war against Iraq despite being
also opposed to Saddam Hussein, himself a former US ally in his war against
Iran. Iraq and Afghanistan were also the only foreign countries that President
Obama called by names in his inaugural address delivered on 20 January 2009 and
in his first State of the Union Address a month later. They were also singled
out among the beneficiaries of Obama’s Stimulus Plan.
The ‘world beyond the American borders’ included Indonesia,
Iraq, and Afghanistan (and its Taliban) (Obama 2008: 347, 362, 364, 368, 378).
It included the Balkans (Obama 2008: 366, 378), North Korea (Obama 2008: 357,
373), Brazil (Obama 2008: 375-376), Burma, Bosnia, and Sudan (Darfur) (Obama
2008: 357, 378, 380), China (Obama 2008: 360, 362, 363, 377, 380), Russia,
India (Obama 2008: 362, 368, 371, 377 ), Ukraine (Obama 2008: 368-371),
Venezuela (Obama 2008: 372), Kenya (Obama 2008: 373, 378), South Korea, Cuba
(Obama 2008: 373-374), Poland (Obama 2008: 374), Kenya (Nairobi) (Obama 2008:
65-66, 242, 373, 375, 378, 380), Iran (Teheran) (Obama 2008: 375, 380), Nigeria
(Obama 2008: 377), Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Congo (Obama 2008: 377),
Uganda (Obama
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2008: 377), Rwanda (Obama 2008: 377),
Mozambique (Obama 2008: 377), US Allies (Obama 2008: 378-379), South Africa
(Obama 2008: 341, 374), and Zimbabwe (Obama 2008: 378).
Groups and people like the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, his Al
Qaeda and allies were also considered part of the ‘world beyond the American
borders’ (Obama 2008: 363-381). Apart from these entities and groups that were
expected to be taken care of, the US under President Obama had also to improve
its relations with other African, Asian, East European, and American countries,
including Cuba, North Korea, and Iran that the Bush administration considered
part of the ‘Axis of Evil’. And yet, the US proved to be ‘part of the Evil’
through its constant violations of international law and use of force. On the
other hand, US foreign policy could not neglect traditional allies in Europe,
America, Asia, Africa and those in the islands of the Atlantic, Indian and
Pacific oceans who also expected to benefit from change in US foreign policy
under Barack Obama who promised that his administration would be more
respectful of international law and favour a multilateral approach in dealing
with the major problems affecting our contemporary world.
Multilateralism and Respect for International
Law in US Foreign Policy
The maintenance of international peace and
security as the major objective of the United Nations (Article 1 (1) of the UN
Charter) requires the people of the world to work together. No single country,
no matter how powerful it may be, can achieve this purpose alone. As President
Obama stressed in his first state of the union address, ‘America cannot meet
the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America’
(Obama 2009). On the other hand, good leadership in international affairs is a
leadership that is collective and respectful of international law rules and
principles.
In recent years, the US was tempted to act unilaterally and
used its position as the world’s sole superpower to bypass international
organisations when they did not endorse its foreign policy, obey its
instructions or ratify Washington’s decisions. In the process, the US probably
succeeded in inflicting more damage to international law than any other world
nation.
The Americans have been several times out of their borders
in arms to destroy their real or supposed enemies or to silence them. One may
remember the hard choice that the rest of the world was required to make with
regard to the American-led ‘war on terror’. In the aftermath of the 9/11
terrorist attacks on New York, former President George W. Bush called for a
‘coalition of the willing’ and asked nations to choose whether they were with
or against the US. Yet, the US cannot take advantage of its relative prosperity
and might to enslave the rest of the world or subject it to new forms of
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imperialism. On the other hand, the US
cannot stand alone and isolate itself from the rest of the world. The opposite
of isolationism is not unilateralism, but multilateralism. The outcome of
unilateral diplomacy has been failure or mixed success. The fact of being the
only remaining world superpower is no excuse to bypass the rest of the world
and shun international organisations to act unilaterally. Nor is it a guarantee
that actions so unilaterally conducted will be successful.
The ‘Change’ that Barack Obama promised in US foreign
policy required the US to abandon its unilateralist tendency and engage in
multilateral diplomacy to address the world’s problems in a more successful and
comprehensive manner (Mangu 2011: 157-166). Barack Obama committed himself to
promoting multilateralism by working together with the leaders of other nations
to change the world for the better and the rest of the world expected that he
would live up to this commitment. Change was therefore expected in US foreign
policy under Barack Obama. As he rightly confessed:
Without a well-articulated
strategy that the public support and the world understand, America will lack
the legitimacy – and ultimately the power – it needs to make the world safer
than it is today. We need a revised foreign policy framework that matches
boldness and Truman’s post-World War II policies – one that addresses both the
challenges and the opportunities of a new millennium, one that guides our use
of force and expresses our deepest ideals and commitments (Obama 2008:
357-358).
Despite its might and resources, the US
alone cannot pretend to solve or succeed in solving the world problems such as
terrorism, insecurity, global warming, poverty and pandemics such as AIDs and
malaria without becoming itself the world’s major problem (Obama 2008: 365).
Obama argued that it was in the US strategic interest to act multilaterally
rather than unilaterally, especially when the Americans use force around the
world (Obama 2008: 365). In Obama’s words, ‘Acting multilaterally means
obtaining most of the world’s support for our actions, and making sure our
actions serve to further recognize international norms’ (Obama 2008: 365). This
implies that the US should act within international organisations and abide by
international norms.
According to Obama, the US should comply with international
law because ‘nobody benefits more than we do from the observance of
international “rules of the road”’ (Obama 2008: 365-366). He added:
We can’t win converts to
those rules if we act as if they apply to everyone but us. When the world’s
sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally
agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth
following, and robs terrorists and dictators of the argument that these rules
are simply tools of American imperialism (Obama 2008: 365-366).
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Compliance
with international law also granted some legitimacy to any action undertaken by
the US. According to Obama, in military parlance, legitimacy is a ‘force
multiplier’ (Obama 2008: 366).
In spite of the fact that the US contributed immensely to
the creation of the UN and other international agencies, which set up
international law rules to be observed or complied with by all the members of
the international community, the irony is that the US has also become one of
the leading nations as far as the violation of international law norms is
concerned. Directly, it has repeatedly violated international law by action or
by omission.
The establishment of the Guantanamo prison and CIA jails
where prisoners were denied human rights, the use of force against Iraq and
other military actions unilaterally conducted in other parts of the world are
some instances of direct violation of international law by the US. Senator and
Democratic candidate Barack Obama bemoaned the effects of Reagan’s policies
toward the Third World, especially his administration’s support to the
apartheid regime of South Africa alongside the funding of El Salvador’s death
squads and the invasion of Grenada (Obama 2008: 341). The US was associated
directly or indirectly with Haiti’s 33 coups d’état (Gutto 2009: 13), the more
recent being the 2004 coup that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The US also indirectly violated international law norms
through its agents or allies by encouraging or abstaining from condemning some
of their actions. However, the US cannot blame ‘rogue states’ for behaving
badly and for their non-compliance with international law norms when it behaves
itself as a rogue nation within the UN Security Council, sitting there to
silence other nations and veto their actions when they are opposed to American
interests, or when the US is unwilling to accept that its own actions be vetoed
by the same Security Council.
Senator Obama argued that ‘our challenge is to make US
policies move the international system in the direction of greater equity,
justice and prosperity’ (Obama 2008: 374). One of the key actors of the
international system is the Security Council, which appears to be undemocratic
as five nations; namely the ‘Big Five’ (the US, United Kingdom, China, France,
and Russia) hold the veto right they use as they please to mainly champion their
own interests and make law for almost two hundred states that participate in
the UN. South America, African continent, and the whole of Asia, except for
China, have no veto right in the Security Council that claims to decide for and
on behalf of the entire world.
To meet the challenge of moving the international system
towards greater equity and justice, the people of ‘the world beyond the
American borders’ expected the US under the Obama administration to agree to
the enlargement of the permanent membership of Security Council to states
representing
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other parts of the world. ‘Change’ under
Obama also required the US to engage in the reform of the Security Council to
make it more representative of the people of the world, including those of
Africa.
This entailed a reform of the Security Council that Obama
also criticised for being ‘frozen in a Cold-war era time wrap’ in its structure
and rules (Obama 2008: 365). Senator Obama recognized that it was in the
American interest for the US to act multilaterally through international
organisations and in compliance with international law. He advised that ‘we
should be spending more time and money trying to strengthen the capacity of
international institutions’ [such as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Atomic
Energy Agency (AEA), and the World Health Organisation (WHO)], ‘so that they
can do some of this work for us’ (Obama 2008: 378, 379). Obama went on:
The more effective UN
peacekeeping forces are in handling civil wars and sectarian conflicts, the
less global policing we have to do in areas that we’d like to see stabilized.
The more credible the information that the International Atomic Energy Agency
provides, the more likely we are to mobilize allies against the efforts of
rogue states to obtain nuclear weapons. The greater the capacity of the World
Health Organisation, the less likely we are to have to deal with a flu pandemic
in our own country. No country has a bigger stake than we do in strengthening
international institutions – which is why we pushed for their creation in the
first place, and why we need to take the lead in improving them (Obama 2008:
379).
This was a recognition that the US tended
to use these international organisations as instruments of its foreign policy.
Yet, international organisations were not created to do the work for the US or
serve American imperialism. One expected, however, that the US under the Obama
administration would spend more time and money to strengthen international
organisations instead of undermining them.
According to Senator Obama, besides the UN agencies that
functioned well like UNICEF, there were other agencies that seemed to do
nothing more than hold conferences, produce reports, and provide sinecures for
third-rate international civil servants.
But he added that those failures were not an argument for
reducing ‘our involvement in international organisations, nor are they an
excuse for US unilateralism’ (Obama 2008: 378-379). The reality is that UN
agencies such as UNESCO and even organs such as the Security Council and the
General Assembly are often accused of inefficiency and therefore deprived of
funding when they tend to rebel against the US and act against the American
interests. Unfortunately, international relations provide the ground for
competition of states’ interests where the most powerful ones would generally
prevail over
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other states. Former French President
General de Gaulle is reported to have rightly pointed out that ‘states have no
friends but interests’. One should also understand that the primary objective
and business of US foreign policy is to serve American interests even if this
would require the US to act unilaterally and violate international law.
Senator Barack Obama suggested at least two areas of
American unilateralism. The first area was where the US could act to perfect
its own democracy and lead by example in improving its human rights record
tarnished by violations of human rights such as detention without trial and
torture in the Guantanamo prison, and degrading and inhuman treatment in the
prisons of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Marines and the CIA,
in or outside the US.
Senator Obama referred to the existence of the Guantanamo
prison where the US administration had instituted a law which was totally different
from the one it applied to its own citizens as the worst conscience case. He
even quoted from a Pentagon report indicating that ‘some U.S. personnel at
Guantanamo had in fact engaged in multiple instances of inappropriate activity
– including instances in which U.S. female personnel pretended to smear
menstrual blood on detainees during questioning, and at least once instance of
a guard splashing a Koran and a prisoner with urine’ (Obama 2008: 152).
Obama rightly found this totally unacceptable on legal and
moral grounds and deplored that ‘the very ideals that we have promised to
export overseas were being betrayed at home’ (Obama 2008: 339).
Abroad, foreigners detained in the CIA prisons suffered the
same fate even when these prisons were established in European countries which
had abolished torture and were bound to respect the rights of all the people
living on their territories.
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama
reassured the world when he held: ‘I can stand here tonight and say without
exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.
We can make that commitment here tonight’ (Obama 2009). The ‘world beyond the
American borders’ expected that his administration would honour such an
unprecedented commitment by not torturing or condoning torture by its friends
and allies abroad. The US was expected to improve its human rights record by
signing and ratifying international instruments such as the Rome Treaty
establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) aimed at prosecuting and
punishing all those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity, including American citizens. It was also expected that the US under
the Obama administration would sign and ratify treaties such as the Tokyo Conventions
on the protection of the environment instead of polluting it. Moreover,
international peace and security required the US to
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stop spending billions in the development
of weapons systems of dubious value while labelling nations such Iran, Iraq, and
North Korea ‘rogue states’ and preventing them from developing their own
weapons of mass destruction.
According to Senator Obama, the unwillingness to make hard
choices and live up to its ideals undermined US credibility in the eyes of the
world and weakened its ability to press for democracy, human rights, protection
of the right to environment, reduction of weapons and the rule of law in
despotic regimes (Obama 2008: 380).
The second area of unilateralism suggested by Obama was the
area of self-defence (Obama 2008: 365). The US, as any other state under
international law, has the right to take unilateral military action to
eliminate any imminent threat to its security. Unfortunately, Senator Obama
understood ‘threat’ to mean ‘a nation, group, or individual that is actively
preparing to strike US targets (or allies with which the US has mutual defence
agreements), and has or will have the means to do so in the immediate future’
(Obama 2008: 364-365). This broad definition of ‘imminent threat’ led to a far
stretched American definition of self-defence, which conflicts with
international law that also does not support the doctrine of preventive
selfdefence (Dugard 2000: 418-421). ‘Change’ that Barack Obama advocated also
required the American administration under his leadership to promote dialogue,
peace and development in its foreign policy.
Promotion of Dialogue, Peace and Development as
a Consequence of Change in US Foreign Policy Under the Obama Administration
From its inception, the US has been a
warring nation. It waged war to gain its independence. During the first 50
years of its independence, it was confronted with the American Civil War and
the Secession War. It participated in the First and Second World Wars, and was
instrumental in bringing both to an end. The US has also demonstrated that it
was the only country capable of waging war on several continents at once.
The US led
the Cold War against the former Soviet Union. Since the 1950s, it has been
almost on all international battle fields and even on domestic ones, directly
or through proxies.
Over the past decades, the US took the lead in the war
against Iraq when this country invaded Kuwait. The US backed Iraq in its war
against Iran. Before turning its back on Iraq in the aftermath of its war on
terror, the US also supported the Taliban in their war against the Soviet
Union. It led the war against Iraq when the Saddam Hussein’s regime was
deliberately accused of backing Al Qaeda and producing weapons of mass
destruction. On the other hand, the US has been threatening war against North
Korea and Iran. Washington’s heavy hand is always felt in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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The use or threat of force has been a key
component of the American foreign policy. Whether the US has won all its wars
is a matter of dispute. Vietnam and Somalia bear testimony to the contrary.
On the other hand, the US is generally blamed for focussing
on business and American interests while paying little attention to the improvement
of the life conditions of other peoples and to the development of their
countries. Obama’s discourse of change therefore called for change of focus
from war to peace, dialogue and development-oriented American foreign policy
(Mangu 2011: 166-172). The rest of the world expected the American diplomacy
under the Obama administration to focus on dialogue, cooperation and
development rather than the use or threat of force that should be an ultimate
resort.
Instead of resorting to use force or threat to force, the
Obama administration was also expected to engage in a meaningful and sincere
dialogue with countries such as North Korea and Iran to combat the
proliferation of weapons and fight terrorism, which threaten international
peace and security.
The US was expected to rather promote dialogue and peace
with other and even within nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland
and former Yugoslavia. In the Middle East, the US was expected to promote
dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians on the one hand and between Israel
and the Muslim world on the other hand. From the US-led Security Council and
from the US itself, the Palestinians expected not quiet diplomacy, abstention
or silence when Israeli forces were killing, but rather some tough decisions to
compel the Israeli government to dialogue and make peace with the Palestinians.
Obama recognised that the US had an obligation to engage in efforts to bring
about peace in the Middle East, not only for the benefit of the people of the
region, but for the safety and security of American children as well (Obama
2008: 381). There was mistrust between the US and the Muslim world. This
mistrust reached its peak in the US during the 2008 presidential election when
opponents accused Obama of being a Muslim, as if an American Muslim or an
American of Arab descent did not qualify to be elected US president.
Beyond the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
the rest of the world also expected that Obama would help bring peace between
the US and the Muslim world on the one hand and between Christians and Muslims
on the other hand.
Moreover, under the Obama administration, the US was
expected to wage war against underdevelopment and poverty instead of sticking
to a militarist concept of peace understood as the silence of weapons. Billions
of dollars spent for military activities in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere
could be used to fight poverty and underdevelopment in these countries.
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In his inaugural address, President Obama made the
following commitment:
To the people of poor
nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let
clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to
those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer
afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the
world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we
must change with it (Obama 2009).
It was therefore expected that the US under
the Obama administration would invest more in the development of the poorest
nations. This also required the US to contribute to ‘humanising’ or giving a
human face to globalisation that mainly benefited the developed nations and
their companies.
US Foreign Policy Under President Obama and the
‘Humanisation’ of Globalisation
Globalisation relates to the opening-up of
the market. So far, it has been benefiting the rich countries, including the
US, at the expense of the poor nations that have been even growing poorer. The
‘Washington Consensus’ also led to an unjust international economic order and
contributed to safeguarding or promoting the economic and financial interests
of the rich countries instead of promoting prosperity for all.
According
to Obama, ‘If overall the international system has produced great prosperity in
the world’s most developed countries, it has also left many people behind – a
fact that Western policy makers have often ignored and occasionally made worse’
(Obama 2008: 373).
Obama blamed globalisation and its main agents, which are
financial institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), multinational companies and developed countries, for their
role in increasing poverty in the underdeveloped world (Obama 2008: 375-376).
Among these agents of globalisation, he first blamed the US and other developed
countries. Obama deplored that:
the United States and other
developed countries constantly demand that developing countries eliminate trade
barriers that protect them from competition, even as we steadfastly protect our
own constituencies from exports that could help lift poor (Obama 2008: 375).
Change in the US-African policy under President
Obama
Obama never denied his African origin or
identity. He visited Africa several times prior to his election and, whether
she liked it or not, he took his
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fiancée Michele to Kenya before they were
married. Accordingly, unlike most of his predecessors, some of whom knew Africa
through story books and Hollywood movies only, Obama was not foreign to the
African continent nor was Africa foreign to him. Kenya is naturally the first
African country named in The Audacity of
Hope. He visited this country three times since he became US Senator in
2004 and evoked this country as the country of his father and where he had
family, cousins and a grandmother. The main problems of Kenya related to
massive violations of human rights and constitutionalism, the corruption of
public officials, ethnicity, and denial of freedom of expression and opposition
to government. Obama argued that Americans had to win the hearts and minds of
people in Nairobi and in Nyangoma Kogelo, a small village in Western Kenya
where his father was born and where there was a real sense of kinship with him
(Obama 2008: 65-66, 242, 373-375).
Less than a year after hundreds were killed in ethnic
violence following the great fiasco that was the 2007 Kenyan election, millions
of Kenyans hoped that Obama could help reconcile them and inspire many people
in the political leadership and the citizenry who longed for the kind of change
he represented and had called for. As Juliana Mwihaki rightly stressed, there
were, indeed, many lessons for Kenya to draw from Obama’s election as US
president (Mwihaki 2009: 58). The American people, who were mostly white,
elected a black person born of a father from the Luo ethnic group in Kenya
while political intolerance in this country was such as a Luo could not be
elected president. Had he returned to Kenya and taken up a Kenyan citizenship
to run for president of this East African country, Obama could have been
disqualified as a foreigner or failed to be elected a Kenyan president.
Apart from Kenya, Senator Obama knew the history and
problems faced by many other African countries. He referred to Somalia, Sierra
Leone and the Congo as ‘lawless countries’ (Obama 2008: 377). This is an
assessment based on the classification of African countries in the American
conventional social science discourse between ‘failed’, ‘collapsed’, ‘weak’,
‘underdeveloped’, or ‘quasi’ states struggling between ‘disintegration’ and
‘reconfiguration’ (Wunsch& Olowu 1990; Zartman 1995, 1999; Migdal 1988;
Médard 1977: 35-84; Jackson 1990; Villalon & Huxtable 1997).
In Somalia, the US-led UN mission once failed to restore
peace and law. Somalia ‘collapsed’ and ‘disintegrated’ partly due to the
withdrawal of the international community. As a result, terrorist activities
have intensified in Somalia over the past three decades. Somali pirates have
also been particularly active along the Somali coasts and in the Indian Ocean.
184
State reconstruction as a prerequisite for peace, security
and development in Somalia and the rest of Eastern Africa is not only in the
interest of the Somali people but also in the interest of the world since a
‘collapsed’ Somalia has also been threatening international peace and security.
African people expected that decades after its withdrawal, the US under the
Obama administration could make a comeback to Somalia and join hands with the
African Union and the States of the Eastern Africa sub-region that have been
struggling to help reconstruct Somalia and bring law and order to this country.
Sierra Leone now seems on a good track, but armed conflicts
are still rife in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), especially in the
Eastern part of the country where some militia and foreign armed groups have
been operating for many years. The DRC was destroyed during three decades of
the authoritarian rule of President Mobutu Sese Seko who was backed by American
administrations. President Laurent-Désiré Kabila who overthrew Mobutu was also
backed by the US directly or indirectly through its new allies in the region;
namely Rwanda and Uganda. These countries invaded the DRC. When Barack Obama was
advocating change in America and came to power, Rwanda and Uganda were still
operating in the DRC. Rwandan and Ugandan officials, the Congolese rebels or
militias that they supported and a number of Western multinationals were
involved in the illegal exploitation of the DRC’s natural resources while the
Congolese people, including children and women, were victims of gross human
violations. Expectations were therefore high that the Obama administration
could help reconstruct the DRC; consolidate peace, security, and democracy;
promote respect for human rights and the rule of law; end foreign aggression
and the illegal exploitation of the Congolese natural resources; and encourage
cooperation, development and democracy in the Great Lakes Region.
President Barack Obama also told authoritarian leaders
around the globe and those clinging to power through corruption, violence,
human rights violations, vote-rigging and manipulation that they were on the
wrong side of history, but the US would extend a hand if they were willing to
unclench their fist (Obama 2008: 377).
Zimbabwe and Libya were singled out as African countries
where massive human rights violations were committed (Obama 2008: 378) but they
were not the only countries where people suffered from the authoritarianism of
their leaders. President Mugabe sometimes organised elections even though he
could not think of anybody else to lead Zimbabwe. In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi
acceded to power by a coup d’état in 1968. When President Omar Bongo of Gabon
died in June 2009 after 42 years in power, Colonel Gaddafi became the ‘Dean’ of
African presidents. Election was
185
unknown in the Libyan political dictionary.
Gaddafi’s decisions, which were wrongly attributed to the people, were not open
to any form of criticism. Many people who knew he had delusions of grandeur
were not surprised when he proclaimed himself the ‘King of African traditional
Kings’ (Mangu 2011: 180-181).Under the above circumstances, Obama’s message of
change and his subsequent election could not go unnoticed among the Zimbabwean
and Libyan citizens. They could also dream of change and expected that the
Obama administration could contribute to change in the governance of their
countries.
In North Africa, although Morocco and Western Sahara were
not mentioned in The Audacity of Hope
expressly, one expected that the Obama administration could promote dialogue
and peace between these countries, their leaders and peoples in the same way as
they encouraged dialogue between the Khartoum government and that of South
Sudan.
The Saharawi people hoped that the US could convince the
King of Morocco to accept a referendum that could help them enjoy their right
to self-determination like the South Sudanese.
In Morocco where the powers were concentrated in the hands
of the King, there was hope among the militants of democracy that they could
receive some support from Washington after Obama’s election. The US
administration was also expected to keep an eye open on Egypt, Tunisia, and
Algeria, which operated under de facto military regimes and where progress
towards democracy had been slow despite their good ranking in terms of
economic, social and corporate governance.
West Africa is a region where some progress had been made
on the road to constitutionalism and democracy in countries such as Benin,
Ghana, Mali, and Senegal. However, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea,
Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Togo still had a long way to go.
The US administration was expected to contribute to consolidating
constitutionalism and democracy in the countries where they were already
established or to promoting them in those countries where they were on the
wane.
On the other hand, Obama had associated Nigeria with India
and China as countries that developed two legal systems – one for foreigners
and elites, and another for ordinary people (Obama 2008: 377). American and
British companies and people were among those foreigners who pushed for and
ultimately obtained a special legal system. Accordingly, like the Indian and
Chinese, the Nigerian people could dream of change and expect that the Obama’s
administration would help bring this dual and discriminatory system to an end
in their country.
186
South Africa performed the miracle of bringing the
apartheid system to an end and reconciling its people into a ‘Rainbow Nation’
of which Nelson Mandela was the founding father. Unfortunately, the end of
apartheid did not mean the end of poverty that still affects the overwhelming
majority of the South African population who are black. Economic apartheid
persisted in South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. The Black majority expected
the US under the Obama’s Democratic administration to help them in the same way
as the Republicans supported the apartheid government. However, like in some
Western African countries, progress had been made in terms of democracy,
respect for the rule of law, human rights, good governance, and development in
Southern African countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique,
Mauritius, and Zambia. Accordingly, there was no darkness everywhere in Africa,
as Conrad once suggested (Conrad 1999).
Barack Obama rightly deplored that some positive trends in
Africa were often hidden in the news of despair. Yet, despite the staunch
resistance of some authoritarian leaders and the rise of some coup-minded military
officers, democracy is spreading in Africa. The economies of authoritarianism
and dictatorship, which paradoxically used to be funded by some Western
democracies under Washington’s leadership, have entered into recession. The
days of authoritarian leaders and other military junta are numbered. According
to Barack Obama, ‘We need to build on these glimmers of hope and help those
committed leaders and citizens throughout Africa build the better future they,
like we, so desperately desire’ (Obama 2008: 377). It would be immoral and
inhuman for Americans to watch others die with equanimity (Obama 2008: 378).
Imperialism unfortunately does not know any morals. It does not care about the
people. Its morals leads it to selfishness and non-stop economic exploitation
to benefit the rich people. The ‘monster’ has no concerns for the plight of its
victims and this is part of its nature.
If moral claims were insufficient for Americans to act as
the African continent implodes, Senator Obama argued that ‘there are certainly
instrumental reasons why the United States and its allies should care about
failed states that don’t control their territories, can’t combat epidemics, and
are numbed by civil war and atrocity’ (Obama 2008: 378).
Africans expected that the Obama administration could
engage in aid relief to combat AIDS and other pandemics, help those who were
affected by droughts and famines, and end wars and armed conflicts by using
their political and armed muscles since most conflicts developed thanks to
Washington’s silence or support. The US administration could also help those
who fought against authoritarianism and corruption since most corrupt leaders
during the Cold War were hailed as Washington’s friends or
187
allies. Over decades, Obama admitted, ‘we
(the American administration and business) would tolerate and even aid thieves
like Mobutu, thugs like Noriega, so long as they opposed communism’ (Obama
2008: 338). In fact, contrary to Obama’s assertion, they were not thieves or
thugs. They were darlings of the US and the romance only came to an end when
the US was no longer interested in them and when they ceased to serve its
interests. This resulted in the US becoming vulnerable and losing any authority
to give other nations a lecture about democracy, respect for the rule of law
and human rights. The US also supported the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The African National Congress (ANC) was considered a terrorist organisation and
Nelson Mandela branded a terrorist leader. In former Zaire, ‘Mobutu or Chaos’
was the formula that long shaped US foreign policy (Schatzberg 1991; Weisman
1974). Western countries, especially the ‘Western Troika’ made up of the US,
France and Belgium, continued to support President Mobutu as the best
representative of Western interests to the detriment of the masses and
democratic forces.
From 1990 to 1993, the US
facilitated Mobutu’s attempts to hijack political change by maintaining that
Mobutu as the president of the Republic was a legitimate part of the transition
process leading to free and fair elections, rather than an impediment to it.
The US also backed the rebels fighting to oust President
Mobutu and Presidents Laurent-Desire and Joseph Kabila without providing any
substantial support to non-violent and democratic opposition. According
to Nzongola-Ntalaja:
The message that the world
community of nations sent to the people of the Congo and Africa as a whole in
these two instances is loud and clear. Changes through democratic means and the
rule of law are not as deserving of unequivocal support as changes through the
barrel of a gun. The first changes are slow, somewhat confusing, and rely on
universal principles of governance that some believe are not applicable to
Africa. The second, on the other hand, are decisive and led by self-reliant
African leaders who are likely to establish stable political orders and market
economies compatible with the interests of the developed North
(Nzongola-Ntalaja1998: 5).
Africans expected change not only in the
message from Washington under the Obama administration, but also in its deeds.
Economic and strategic interests could no longer prevail over ideals to command
support for African authoritarian and corrupt leaders. Africans did not ask
President Obama to impose democracy and good governance with the barrel of a
gun or to liberate them from tyranny, which he could not, but to just do what
he said the Americans could:
188
We can inspire and invite
other people to assert their freedoms; we can use international forums and
agreements to set standards for others to follow; we can provide funding to
fledging democracies to help institutionalize fair election systems, train
independent journalists, and seed the habits of civic participation; we can
speak out on behalf of local leaders whose rights are violated; and we can
apply economic and diplomatic pressure to those who repeatedly violate the
rights of their own people Obama 2008: 374).
Barack Obama was also right not to trust
those who ‘believe they can single-handedly liberate other people from tyranny’
(Obama 2008: 374).Unfortunately, they were and still are many to hold such
belief in the Western hemisphere, especially in the US.
As he pointed out:
there are few examples in
history in which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside
intervention. In almost every successful social movement of the last century,
from Gandhi’s campaign against British rule to the Solidarity movement in
Poland to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, democracy was the result
of a local awakening (Obama 2008: 374).
Africans hoped that an American
administration led by a man who directly traced his roots to an African country
(Kenya) would do more to help the continent. However, Obama was not a senator
for Okelo, a Kenyan or an African lawmaker. He was rather an American citizen
and a senator for Illinois. He could not love Africa and Africans more than
America and the Americans who elected him (Mwihaki 2009: 60; Mangu 2011:
187-188). He could be black, but his mind and soul were American. The last
sentence of his The Audacity of Hope
even sums it up when he confessed that ‘My heart is filled with love for this
country’ (Obama 2008: 427). This means that there was no or little space left
in his heart for other countries, including the African.
As I pointed out elsewhere (Mangu 2011: 188), the primary
responsibility for rebuilding or developing Africa and improving the life
conditions of its peoples lies with Africans themselves. In this world where
people are interdependent and should cooperate, Africans also need the
assistance of other nations, especially the US and other world developed
nations. The continent that suffered from the slave trade to benefit the
Americas and that used to be marginalised had to be given a pride of place in
the hearts of the Americans and in US foreign policy (Mangu 2011: 191).
189
Conclusion
Obama’s election was a historic moment in
the American and world history. It symbolised the victory of hope over despair,
optimism over pessimism, tolerance over intolerance, equality over
discrimination, human rights over human wrongs, reconciliation over hatred and
racial segregation, justice over injustice, morality over immorality, the new
over the past, the truth over the lies, audacity over adversity and
civilisation over modern forms of barbarity. It was the triumph of
constitutionalism, democracy and human rights. Obama’s election was based on
‘change’ he advocated. Accordingly, ‘change’ was expected in US domestic and
foreign policy, including the African policy. Unlike the previous American
administration, the Obama administration was expected to promote
multilateralism and the rule of law in international affairs. As for the
majority of African people, they expected that Africa would be given a pride of
place in the American foreign policy and that the Obama administration would
promote peace, security, development, good governance, and democracy on the
continent despite the main responsibility for an African renaissance resting
with Africans themselves.
This article was not about why Obama was elected and
whether he delivered on his promise of ‘change’. Even when he focussed on the
US foreign and African policy, the author did not intend to examine the driving
force, which is imperialism, and its political economy let alone the dependency
discourse. Nor did he purport to investigate the magnitude and feasibility of
‘change’ under President Obama.
The article rather reflected on the American foreign policy
against the background of the promises that Senator Obama made in The Audacity of Hope and later during
the campaign. It took stock of Obama’s promise of ‘change’ and the ‘audacious’
hopes that his election raised across the world in general and in Africa in
particular. Its main aim was to provide a solid background for a credible
assessment of the US foreign and African policy under a president who advocated
‘change’ not only in Washington and the US, but also in the ‘world beyond the
American borders’.
A fair and complete assessment of ‘change’ that Obama
promised in US foreign and African policy will only be made later when his
second and final term ends in 2016. It will then be possible to judge whether
Obama delivered on his promise of ‘change’, whether he could bring about
significant ‘change’ in US foreign and African policy, and whether it was ‘business
as usual’ and that the immense and audacious hopes that he raised across the
world and in Africa were unfounded.
190
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