I will do everything in my power to stop Iran from going nuclear,” thus spake Barack Obama while addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) soon after he clinched the nomination of the Democratic Party for the US Presidency. As if his message might go unnoticed, he repeated emphatically: “I will do everything in my power.” This was a reversal from his earlier position on Iran where he had indicated that he would be willing to sit across Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without any preconditions to sort out the diplomatic impasse between the two states. But that was when he was courting the base of the Democratic Party and differentiating himself from the more hawkish Hillary Clinton.

Obama is moving rapidly to the centre after coming out of the primaries. After changing his posture on Iran, he has also hinted at a subtle change in his new position on Iraq, suggesting that a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would not be in American interests after all. Obama is trying to sound presidential, and soon the world will find that those aspiring to the highest office in the United States cannot afford to have radical ideas on foreign policy.

The war on terror will continue with or without George W. Bush. Neither Obama nor McCain has signalled that they are in any way troubled by this never-ending war. If anything, Obama has signalled that he would be willing to reinforce US troops in Afghanistan as he, like many Democrats, thinks that unlike the war in Iraq the one against the Taliban in Afghanistan is worth fighting. And it was Obama who had argued that he would be willing to bomb Pakistan if the cooperation in the fight against extremists was not forthcoming.

... contd.