Five Reasons Why Barack Obama Should be President

1. The Iraq War

   Against the war from the start, Obama remains vehemently opposed to the Iraq conflict calling President Bush's decision to invade “rash”. In contrast to John McCain's Iraq policy, whereby the Republican presidential nominee will keep troops in Iraq until 2013 if he becomes president, Obama has stated that that there will be a phased withdrawal of all combat brigades within sixteen months. The Illinois senator has also pointed out that, if and where necessary he will maintain sufficient troop numbers to carry out targeted strikes on Al-Qaeda. For a nation reeling from an unnecessary war, it is becoming increasingly clear that the people of the United States can look only on Barack Obama to instigate significant change.

2. Relations With Iran

   The Democratic frontrunner recently acknowledged that a nuclear Iran is “a threat to all of us”. Like President Bush, John McCain has seemingly already decided that Iran can be dealt with only one way and that is war. What the neo-cons fail to realise, or choose to ignore, is that war should only be pursued as a valid option after, and only after every other possible option has been exhausted. McCain evidently seeks to continue Bush's tactics of scare-mongering the electorate, a tactic which won the Bush administration a second term in office. He has called Obama “reckless” for advocating any sort of diplomacy with Iran, whereas other Republicans have labelled him an “appeaser”. Obama has hit back at the accusations, stating that they are akin to the kind of disastrous foreign policy decisions taken by the Bush administration. Politics is diplomacy. It would simply be ludicrous not to at least attempt some degree of dialogue with the Iranian government.

3. Cuba and Latin America

   Relations between Latin America, America's own “backyard” and the US have suffered whilst George Bush has held the keys to the White House. Obama has spoken of the need for a US regional envoy to the continent, a position scrapped by President Bush in 2004. While he has condemned the human rights abuses of the Castro regime in Cuba, the Illinois senator seeks to better relations with Latin America as a whole. To do this, Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela are vitally important as they are two of the continents most significant states. Obama, thus seeks dialogue with the Cuban president Raul Castro and Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez. He has also sought to “allow Cuban-Americans unlimited rights to travel and send money to the island as president, loosening Bush administration restrictions that are increasingly unpopular”, as reported by Elana Schor for Guardian.co.uk on May 23.

4. The “Special Relationship”

   US relations with the UK are as strong as ever. Britain is a key ally for the United States. However it is the widely held view that the Bush administration abused its position in the relationship between the two nations, particularly regarding the “war on terror”. Rather than go down the legal route of the United Nations concerning the Iraq invasion, which would provide a consensus of multilateral action, the Bush administration adopted a unilateral policy. The UN route was advocated by the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a view ignored by President Bush. Where John McCain would continue a unilateral policy, Obama has stated that the US needs to “recalibrate the relationship and for the United Kingdom to work with America as a full partner”. This policy bodes well for the future as the current British leader Gordon Brown and Obama have already held a meeting in Washington, a meeting which was positive.

5. Africa

   The Oh! Bama! phenomenon has already galvanised black America. He now seemingly has a similar effect on the African youth of today. It has been said of many figures in the past, but Obama offers genuine hope to the youth of Africa. Typifying the commonly held view among young people across Africa of the Illinois senator, in an interview with the Guardian on May 26 Funmilayo Akinosi, a young African law graduate said, “it tells you that if he can do it, I can be something myself”, as reported by Olly Owen.

At a time when the United States' image abroad needs urgent reparations, it is Barack Obama who is the most capable of carrying out this task. The world's view of America is worse than it ever has been as a result of President Bush's presidency, a view unlikely to improve drastically under a John McCain administration.