Obama and the World: the Challenges He Will Face

you people make no sense at all i dont even understand what you are saying. first you are talkin about Obama then Iraq thats not even on subject. Please tell me what you are saying???

helpunderstand of IA 2:50PM February 07, 2010

The majority of American people have made the right choice.

With Obama as our president, in the past darkness of despair, here, in the United States of America, arises the morning glory of new hope for peace, prosperity, and the future of our children.

God bless Mr. Obama. God bless America.

Ying Ding of NC 9:37PM November 08, 2008

I personally couldn't care less about Arabs and/or Jews. What bothers me is the hypocrisy of the media. Everybody talks about stopping Iran from developing atomic bombs. But what about Israel? Don't the Iranians have a moral right to arm themselves to balance out Israel?

Hubert Cross of CA 8:22PM November 07, 2008

The whole world rejoiced the election of Baraq Obama because the whole world had held massive demonstrations with signs "Bush is criminal" wherever George Bush went. The anti-American sentiment around the world is more that 85%, the anti-Bush more than 94%, but 100% in Muslim countries. And in the global contrast of personifying the good and the evil, Obama certainly comes first, and starts with busloads of good global admiration.

I hope that Obama has the guts to sustain his own moral and ethical standards as president - rather than yield to old bureaucrats with a global warmongering mentality. If he does, he can formulate an effective foreign policy, travel around the world with pride, and shake hands with common people, something that Bush could do only in Albania -the beneficiaries of his Kosovo policy.

The Russian president didn't say anything new about the American Missile Deployment in Eastern Europe. Russia had said even before Dmitri Medvedev was elected president that if such a system is ever built, it will be targeted. Medvedev just announced that the Russian counter-missile defense will be based in Kaliningrasd. Was he bluffing to scare Obama? No, but

he was certainly telegraphing Obama to keep warmongers out of

his cabinet selection list.

Iran would certainly down any U.S. military aircraft over its airspace. With all the threats from the U.S. and Israel to attack its nuclear facilities with airstrikes, the Iranians have procured the latest technology of multiple anti-aircraft Russian batteries, and they are waiting with their hands on the firing button.

The biggest foreign policy for Obama -and his global shine- will be the stopping of civilian killings by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On October 24, 2008, the Pakistani parliament unanimously passed a resolution asking the U.S. "to stop bulldozing Pakistan," a reference to U.S bombing of houses and schools in Pakistan, and the killing of hundreds of civilians. And Afghan president Hamid Karzai's first plea to Obama was to stop the killing of Afghan civilians. Those civilian killings have discredited both the Afghan and Pakistan governments to the the point of high treason in the minds of their populations. They are sustained in power by the U.S., but they eventually will be chased out some day like the Shah of Iran, and those countries will become Islamic Republics controlled by clerics.

Obama will need to publicly issue a order on January 20, 2008, prohibiting U.S. bombing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and declare that the U.S. policy there will shift to reconciliation and reconstruction. With the enormous goodwill he starts he presidency, that offer will probably be accepted by the Taliban because he can exude some trust in them with his father Muslim background. And he has the oratorical skills to make the Taliban trust him. He just has to keep Joe Biden's dialectics out of that mission. Nikos Retsos, retired academic and historian

Nikos Retsos of IL 3:54PM November 07, 2008