In Focus: A possible consensus A grim report from the US intelligence community limits Obama's room for action while making action all the more imperative, writes Galal Nassar Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union president George Bush Sr pledged to make the 21st century the American century, just as the 20th century had mostly been. But things didn't go according to plan. While the US was busy trying to impose its hegemony around the globe China grew like a giant mushroom, India attained technical sophistication, Russia regrouped, and the world started to look very different from how the neocons intended. The 9/11 attacks served to give them far more room for manoeuvre, and was used to lend a semblance of credibility to the preemptive wars which they claimed were waged in defence of the "American way of life". But it was an insatiable thirst for global domination that ended up undermining their whole imperial scheme. The occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq kept America busy, opening up space for other nations to occupy the vacuum left on the international scene. So how different are things going to be under Obama? Are we about to see a substantial shift in US foreign and domestic policy? Or will it be business as usual? The most recent evidence of where we are heading was contained in a report released on 20 November by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the organisation that coordinates analysis from all US intelligence agencies. Global Trends 2025 draws a grim picture of an unstable world, with conflicts over scarce resources growing amid widening international divisions. Although the NIC report predicts that the US will remain "first among equals" it predicts an end to its status as the sole superpower, noting that wealth and power will gradually shift towards the East. Unfortunately for US tax payers, the decline in America's influence will not be matched by a decrease in its overseas obligations, especially given that Washington remains determined to maintain its support of allies around the world, Israel. The report also expects the US army to continue to play the leading role in the so-called war on terror, though Washington will no longer be able to call all the shots. By 2025 China will have emerged as the world's second largest economy and will possess military power to match its status. It is going to be the main rival to the US, the report says. China will also be a major polluter of the environment and the major importer of natural resources. Other countries, including India, Iran and Turkey will start imitating the consumerist lifestyle America invented. The arms race is likely to continue, with international conflicts focussed on trade, investment, market wars and technological espionage. This is a lot for the new administration to absorb. No wonder Obama is recruiting former Clinton aides to help out. The economy, now in its worst crisis ever since 1929, is a particularly daunting task. Crises of such dimensions do not bode well. Writing in the mid-war period, Jawaharlal Nehru, one of India's national independence champions and the country's first prime minister, predicted that the Great Depression would lead to another world war. Some 70 million people were to perish in the war that erupted a few years later. The world cannot survive another world war, not with stockpiles of nuclear weapons sufficient to eradicate all forms of life on the planet. Nuclear weapons have become deterrent in every sense of the word. Their use can bring nothing but extinction for the human race. Obama is likely to try something akin to Bill Clinton's economic programme to kick-start the economy, but will it work? The current economic crisis, with its global dimensions, requires a new kind of medicine, perhaps even a rethinking of its fundamental premises. To resolve the current crisis something will have to be done to revive time-honoured notions of justice, equality and partnership. We need to revive respect for the International Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter and the right of nations to self-determination. And we may need to rethink the selfish consumerism in which the world has indulged for decades, perhaps even start thinking in terms of self-sufficiency. Obama must steer away from the rhetoric of war and seek instead to build consensus. The world needs to rethink the rules of non-proliferation, invent new ways of eliminating poverty, and continue to fight illiteracy. The new US president should admit that US plans for Iraq have failed and that the Iraqis must be left to decide their own future. The same goes for Afghanistan, where invaders have been repulsed repeatedly by a nation determined to fight in the valleys and the hilltops. The war on terror doesn't make sense unless we comprehend the relationship between oppression and hatred. We have to understand the reasons that lie behind international tensions in order to emerge from the disasters that have beset us at every turn. It will take courage and resolve to turn things around, but it is not an impossible task.
