All the crises that Carter faced -- fuel and food, the Middle East, general malaise -- are still crying out for solutions, argues Gamal Nkrumah In conventional wisdom, an aspiring American presidential candidate must court the omnipotent pro-Israel or Jewish lobby. So it came as no surprise that Senator Barack Obama has abruptly halted his acerbic public warnings about the need for drastic change in foreign policy concerns -- and especially when it comes to Israel, a country that has never been seen as a paragon of good government in this part of the world, but that has long been the sacred cow of the American political establishment. "My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton and John McCain," Obama disclosed last week in an about-face on the prickly topic to The Atlantic. He also stressed his deep support for Israel when he spoke at a synagogue during a visit to Florida this week. The comments by the leading contender for the presidency of the Democratic Party raised eyebrows in Egypt and other Arab and Muslim nations. Was it a question of appeasement, wondered many an Arab pundit. After all, Obama has been on record advocating face-to-face talks with Iran and Hamas. Former United States president Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, is not desperate to clamber onto his high horse. The Nobel peace laureate is under no obligation to woo or sweet-talk anyone. Carter made the unprecedented remark about an Israeli arsenal of 150 or more nuclear bombs -- something that no Israeli or US official has dared to before -- while responding to a question at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival in Wales in which he was asked how any future US president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. Few hearts in Washington were swelling with pride in Carter's comments. But it is precisely such comments that could both win the heart of voters and also will endear America to the outside world. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security adviser, recently noted that the slur of anti-Semitism was too readily used whenever the overbearing power of the pro-Israeli lobby in the US was called into question. Brzezinski was hand-picked by Obama and his team to help chart his foreign policy. Now, Brzezinski's views on the pro-Israeli lobby are anything but flattering. "They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel," Brzezinski explained recently to the British- based Telegraph. Presenting a solution for the Middle East, he listed historical compromises that had to be made by Israelis and Palestinians but accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) -- the largest and most influential Jewish lobby group -- of obstructing peace efforts. Not surprisingly, his comments did not go down all too well in pro-Israeli circles. There would be a case to make, albeit a brave one, for Obama as Jimmy Carter's reincarnation. Brzezinski was a key player in the 1978 Camp David Accords. So Obama does have some advice from one of America's most seasoned political advisors. At John F Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, he uttered a memorable phrase: "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." Carter and Obama were both obviously inspired by Kennedy's illuminating adage. Obama has an eye for the boundary of the permissible in American politics. "The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the [former] Soviet Union has about the same; Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more," Carter noted at the Welsh festival. Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, have long pointed out that Israel's nuclear arsenal is the deadliest in the region. And, Carter concurred. "We have a phalanx of enormous weaponry and of rockets to deliver those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target," he said. Carter also agreed with Obama that the US government should talk directly to Iran in order to iron out differences. The former US president stirred much controversy in Washington last month by holding talks with Khaled Meshaal, leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas, in the Syrian capital Damascus. Obama is clearly constructing his foreign policy using the Kennedy-Carter blueprint. This is why he is being accused of "lacking expertise" and insights into the intricacies of foreign policy -- to prevent this sane policy from being implemented. His detractors reproach him for possessing a certain naïveté. The crux of the matter revolves around his perspectives of Israel, Iran and the Middle East in general. Not lacking in political acumen, but possibly belatedly, Obama has tried hard to curry favour with the powerful pro-Israel lobby. However, there are few signs as yet that his courtship washes with America's Jews. Obama's wooing has not appeased nervous Jews in America. The Jewish voters are important in crucial swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania -- two states where Senator Hillary Clinton, a card-carrying member of AIPAC, comfortably beat Obama. She also did well in California and her adopted New York. Many Christian evangelicals -- a far more numerous group than the Jews -- are also passionately pro-Israel and are no fans of Obama. However, assumed Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama has based his ambitious bid for the White House on a conviction that a majority of Americans are yearning for change. His campaign, including his choice of Brzezinski as policy adviser, is reminiscent of the Carter and Kennedy presidencies. Obama appeals overwhelmingly to the young and the young at heart. All this is indicative of the creation of a new American mindset. The fuss stirred by Carter's candid statements on Iran and Israel were not lost on Arab and Muslims across the world. For all intents and purposes, Obama has already begun running against the Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Now Marie Antoinette would have been proud of McCain's environmental politics, in light of the world food crisis. She would have abhorred Obama's, though. It is easy to be cynical about all this. Obama in not afraid to tell it as it is, that the world resents Americans for "using 25 per cent of the world's energy, even though [the country] only accounts for three per cent of the population." Indeed, Obama has demonstrated a rare understanding in sharp contrast with his predecessors of the politics of global climatic change. He is acutely aware that Americans have to change their lifestyle if they seriously wish to save the planet. He is surely not afraid of losing vote over his sensitive approach. Carter was excommunicated by the Democratic Party following the publication of Israel's Apartheid, despite his international standing, and now Obama is reinstating him through Brzezinski. Is Obama's current calculated reaching out to Jewish voters as opposed to the Clinton-style kowtowing to AIPAC a way out of America's dead end in the Middle East?
