(Newswire.net — June 14, 2017) —
The most important aspect of Obama’s legacy is that he is the first black man with the middle name of Hussain (a Muslim name) to become the President of the United States and this has become the history which can never be changed. After his historic win in 2008, it was being considered as a step forward towards healing the nation’s ugly wound of racism. But unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Rather his election had the opposite effect. Obama’s opponents questioned his legitimacy from the beginning by claiming that he was not a born U.S. citizen. The leader of the opposition, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell declared that highest priority of the Republican Party will be to make sure that Obama is not reelected. Republicans hated Obama so much that they opposed everyone of his action even at the cost of the American public. Racism was unleashed and the deep racial division which had been hidden so far came open very aggressively. American public culture failed badly. America was not ready for a black president. That became very obvious when after eight years of his presidency Obama handed over the power to the same people who questioned his legitimacy in 2008 and denied him the right to govern. These people have already started to demolish his achievements.
It is still too early to say that how history will judge Obama’s presidency but it is quite visible that now more than four months into the Trump presidency, Republicans are having great trouble in undoing his accomplishments. So far I can say that Obama lived up to his campaign promises like health care, taxes, economic revival etc. In spite of Democrats loss in election 2016, Obama left office with solid approval ratings and he is still more popular than President Trump but unfortunately, Obama’s personal popularity could not change the racial divide and over partisan environment that dominates so much of American political culture.
He governed through extensive crises both domestic and foreign. He was a daring sensible at home and a cautious realist overseas. Obama paid a lot more attention to foreign and national security policy than did his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton. Clinton had assumed the presidency after the end of the Cold War, a time of exceptional global peace and American prosperity. For Clinton, economic policy was foreign policy. Clinton was lucky that he didn’t have to face any major international crisis.
While Obama inherited two wars and he had spent every day of his presidency at war. He came to the office with no governance experience but he had deep interest in foreign policy. The worst economic crash of 2008 forced his attention on domestic economic recovery; he wanted to change the United States’ unilateral and aggressive attitude toward the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world. The speech he gave in Cairo in June 2009 was an appeal for a new, postcolonial order in the region. Obama saw himself playing an important role in this regard. He hoped that his rise to power would indicate the end of the era of Western arrogance toward the rest of the world. But the world turned in a different direction against all his hopes. World became turned inward towards a populist tribalism which was the opposite of his cosmopolitan vision.
Dr. Tariq Niazi, executive director at whitehousepress.us is a former White House staff member and has served with President Obama and President Clinton.