We Are "That One"

I can no longer refrain from bemoaning the tepidness of our president-elect when it comes foreign affairs. It is one thing to run a 'feel-good' campaign and something quite different to govern based on high moral principle. But if the timidity Obama has shown by selecting Clinton retreads for his "change" administration represents "transcendental leadership" then there is little the world can hope for in the years ahead.

Not that his choices have been any great surprise. From a strictly policy standpoint there was barely a sliver of difference between him and Hillary. In fact the primary reason (apart from the rather grotesque distraction of having a garrulous and charismatic former president occupying the role of "First Lady") that Obama seemed the superior option was his apparent knack for getting contentious factions to see their common ground. Indeed his uniquely American quality as he spoke of constantly was that thanks to his background "he had bits of us all inside him."

The End of Exceptionalism

There is a Manichean inevitability about 21st century globalization. A friend of mine put it succinctly after visiting London for a second time nearly a decade ago-- "the Empire has struck back"... indeed the subjected people of the 19th and 20th centuries are striking back in Rome and Paris from Minneapolis to Tel Aviv.

"There are areas where Americans—or at least the American right—cherishes the notion that we are exceptional. We sometimes think that we alone believe that "sometimes military force is necessary to maintain order in the world." ... On what has become a crucial test of a society's inclusiveness and tolerance, the United States lags well behind every Western European country, as well as many Eastern European and most Latin American countries. --Fareed Zakaria

Which is why the neo-cons grandly narcissistic "Plan for a New American Century" with its aspiration to an updated form of 19th century imperialism has been such a disaster. The "great unwashed" have already stormed the barricades-- as Obama's election demonstrates-- they are ensconced at Cambridge and Harvard. The idea of the separate autonomous state defined by its ethnicity and common faith is fast becoming extinct. One simply has to look at the historic centers of rigorous trade to see that Commerce eventually supercedes both "Race" and religion. The problem, under such tradition-upsetting circumstances, is what exactly should one be loyal to? And that is precisely the conundrum that Barack Obama will be challenged to solve.

"My Country is the World and my Religion is to do Good"

Thomas Paine, more than any other Revolutionary figure, is responsible for the American Idea-- an idea which has taken hold around the world-- the notion that individual liberty is an act of conscience. It is a concept as old as Plutarch and Socrates and yet as the viability of the nation state collapses like Wall Street banks and the Big Three automakers, we humans cling more and more tightly to our fear of the "Other". For the Eastern chauvinists and their religious zealots inspired by Osama bin Laden, it is the encroachment of the West with its aggressive sexuality and dogma of profit. They resent our swaggering on Islam's sacred conservative ground and so they insist on drowning the courageous Muslim voices straining to cast off their political chains and shape a new destiny. They are not helped by the fact that here in America the evangelical Christian Right see the "Third World's" struggle for dignity and democracy as a signal for the biblical "End Times" and an inevitable final "Clash of Civilizations".

And yet through all the chaos, suspicion and fear there are those who embody that individual principle: that differences can the bridged, that identity extends no farther than reach of one's intellect or the tip of one's nose. That increasing modern reality made me think of Obama's great challenge as I read about Raid al-Ubrah. As a Beduoin lawyer living in Israel Mr. Al-Ubrah is a second-class citizen yet he happily volunteers to help Russian immigrants who do not speak Hebrew navigate the bureaucracy of their adopted home.

"I enjoy the action, I like the old people, and I like helping out," Ubrah says. "Who cares if the person asking for advice is Arab or Jew or Christian?"

Watching the horror unfolding in Gaza my heart is heavy-- it seems that as a world lacking in any moral leadership we have lost our collective conscience. That Raid al-Ubrah springs from a nomadic tribe reminds me (sadly) that the greatness of a people resides not in the land, or their wealthiest men, but in their heroes. That more often than not, the greatest among us die forgotten-- reviled, in exile, imprisoned or poor. Would that those like Mr. Obama, who may yet leave the world so much, can remember what it means to take a stand and bravely endure.