The sheen is coming off perhaps America's only hope for salvation, worries Gamal Nkrumah It is time for America to step up, at least when it comes to foreign policy. It is up to the American people to decide whether the black man, the white woman or the oldest presidential candidate in the nation's history will be elected president. Whatever the case, the world watches closely the outcome of this year's United States presidential race. Each of the candidates is a problem for some of the electorate. While being old and white has never been a serious impediment to office, being a woman or a black has. The question is whether Americans will prefer to airbrush all this out at the November election or whether ageism, sexism or racism will remain decisive factors. Predictably, McCain is the most secure of the three, perhaps because of the shoot- from-the-hip culture for which America is sadly so well known. He is already blasting his opponents with both guns, having done away with his GOP rivals in earlier showdowns. But he is not alone in his deadly approach. Character assassination appears to be the Clintons' preferred method of fighting their hapless opponent as well. Even though Hillary Clinton clinched Pennsylvania, Obama is still the sweetheart of the nation, with more delegates than she has. She, or rather her better half, Bill, is not above playing the Caucasian card, as he did during the Pennsylvania primary. Clinton is far from charismatic. Obama exudes charisma. His campaign has been nothing short of breath-taking. But what has Hillary been doing for the past three months? Instead of gracefully acknowledging the obvious, she has willfully gnawed away at the Democrats' latter- day JFK. With President George W Bush, the most unpopular president in US history, at least since polling began 70 years ago, it should be a walk-over for the Democrats. Instead, the world is facing the possibility of yet another Republican warmonger in the White House. The 2008 presidential elections have once again reinforced the notion that the entire US political system is a theatre play with predictable script. Yes, a black presidential candidate would be permitted to advance to final rounds, but would he be allowed to win? Reverend Jeremiah Wright has been playing right into the devil's hands acting like a baffoon with his incessant chatter to the paparazzi about how he will hound a President Obama once in office. Obama, while distancing himself from this unpredictable firebrand, said, "Wright's church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that makes up the black experience in America." Obama's campaign is not over, but there are growing signs that the American political establishment is intent on depriving Obama of victory at the Democratic nomination contest. Obama is determined to close Guantanamo for good. He is also committed to a pull out from Iraq. The difference in opinion between Obama on the one hand and Clinton and McCain on the other is nothing short of stark. The American economic outlook remains doubtful. America's failing housing sector is in a deplorable state. The unprecedented multi-trillion dollar mortgage debacle has shaken people's faith in the American economy. Inflation on the rise, and foreclosures are on the cards. The repercussions are disastrous. It is somewhat surprising that none of the candidates are focussing on the state of the economy. This is supposedly Clinton's strong card. Monetary and fiscal policies are expected to remedy this economic quagmire. Still, what can public policy do? Since the days of the late president Ronald Reagan the military- industrial complex has defined the US economy. The US defence expenditure equals the combined military spending of all other countries. No president in the foreseeable future -- black, woman or elderly -- would tamper with these certitudes. What is certain is that the next president of the US would have to give priority to the state of the economy. Nevertheless, the country's foreign policy will continue to be the most important focus preoccupying the next US president. Foreign policy concerns will also be uppermost in the mind of the 44th US president. And, the two are inextricably intertwined in the minds of many Americans. The 44th US president is highly unlikely to stop pouring billions of dollars into Israeli coffers or pumping billions of dollars to bolster the American military. He or she will not dare curtail the huge and growing profits of giant US corporations. Obama, as much as McCain, will pander to the Zionist lobby. After all, is not the Alexandria-born dual-citizen (Israeli and US) Haim Saban, the biggest single contributor to the Democratic Party? He fled Egypt as a teenager with his family in the aftermath of the Suez War in 1956. Obama has as much reason to curry favour with him as Clinton. "I am a one issue guy, and my issue is Israel," Saban told The New York Times in 2004. Then there is the question of Afghanistan and Iraq. The situation in Afghanistan hangs by a thread, and the Taliban will easily come back to power, a monstrous failure of the Bush policy of reckless interventionism. As for Iraq, with its shiny new US Embassy, "it's a city inside the green zone, the protected region of Iraq, that the US runs. It's got everything from missiles to McDonalds, anything you want. They didn't build that huge facility because they intend to leave," as Noam Chomsky so aptly put it. The Middle East is the Achilles heel for all the candidates, including Obama, though his outsider and black status hints at a more sympathetic understanding of the tragedy unfolding in the region. If he loses because of Hillary's sour grapes, the whole world loses.
