Next Obama Venue - The Moon! You The Man!

Not the first such incident in Iran. Has Mossad and/or our own forces penetrated Iran? (See 1 below.)

Lee Cary parses Obama's Berlin speech and compares it with Sakozy's.

Obama's staff is now considering his making a speech from the Moon. Turn's out Obama's the Man! (See 2 below.)

A favorable read on Obama's Berlin speech. (See 3 below.)

The Chief Editor of Der Spiegel's Foreign Desk recognizes Obama's desire to be leader of the planet and has dubbed him #44. He also poses the question for others whether they are up to being led and will follow #44 in saving the planet. (See 4 below.)

Krauthammer writes Maliki has voted. Krauthammer agrees with my own previous comment, Maliki is a very clever politician but the could be Maliki also get what he wishes for and that could turn out to be more than he bargained for.

What I find interesting is that all this "Time Line" talk is all comic theatre. We came, we saw, we conquered and then we leave. We always intended staying til the job was done and when the job was done we intended picking up our marbles in the distant hope Iraq will stay in the game and become a trusted ally whose people were freed of a tyrranical leader. The time for leaving is when you have completed the training of a viable Iraq force capable of protecting the nation so that a stable government can function. The Sunnis recanted their earlier decision to stay aloof and that took some time. Now the Sunni are inside the government and progress is being made according to our own State Department's measurements. So logic would dictate the time for withdrawal is near at hand, because of the surge, and will begin unless something comes along to mess it all up. Trying to score political points on exact time fixing is garbage. Wars and their aftermath and establishing new nations do not fit the time line of birthing babies.

How long does Obama plan to sit and talk with Iran? Any time line there or is he just going to talk till the nukes come home? (See 5 below.)

More positive commentary on Obama's speech from The Economist.

If a person makes a substantive speech does that mean he is a person of substance? Kennedy made some great speeches but after the Bay of Pigs we nearly got into a nuclear confrontation. So much for substantive speechifying.

It took Nixon to 'unilaterally' get us out of Viet Nam after Kennedy had their leader overthrown. Nixon accepted defeat and we are still paying the price.

Granted I have have been accused of cynicism and single mindedness. Perhaps I have become jaded by having lived too long but not without some degree of justification because when I see the world embrace a meteor in the form of a single human - the cult of personality - I get uptight. I am reminded of Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Chavez and their brethren.

There is something potentially dangerous when the world places its faith in a single mortal who heightens expectations simply thru hyperbolic and soaring rhetoric. Sermons are uplifting but action and follow through also count for something.

Martin Luther King was not embraced. In fact, he was consistently and persistently resisted and I believe that made his arguments stronger. He too was on the right side of the moral issue and if you seek truly brilliant speech making then I will take MLK and place him right alongside Adlai S and Hubert H. The latter two were accomplished statesmen with years of selfless public service. They fit the mold of the kind of leadership I feel more comfortable with even though their social welfare concepts were a bit over the hill for me.

Victor Davis Hanson makes a wise observation:When one reads about hostile populations in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the West Bank, and Venezuela all rooting for Obama, it seems to be predicated on the notion that, given their impression of his background and career thus far, he will radically alter the course of American foreign policy and at home turn us toward the world’s accepted model of European
socialism.

Thus, the $64K-question arises if he is elected: will our belligerents cease their animus, given that we are devolving to their world view, or is their hatred such that they will sense weakness and try to exploit even Obama’s rehabilitated America. (That’s a rhetorical question, since the answer I think is clearly the latter.)

You decide. (See 6 below.)

Dick

1) Iran convoy attacked reportedly while taking arms to Hezbollah

An Iranian military convoy attacked in a mysterious explosion last week was delivering a load of military equipment to the Hezbollah militant group at the time of the blast, western officials told the London Daily Telegraph in a report published on Friday.

Details of the explosion, which occurred near a Revolutionary Guards' munitions warehouse in the Tehran suburb of Khavarshahar and left 15 people dead, were blacked out even in Iranian media.

Western officials told the Telegraph that the Revolutionary Guards had launched an investigation into the cause mystery blast, which apparently took place on July 19.
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"This was a massive explosion that was heard throughout Tehran," an official told the Telegraph. "Even though lots of people were killed, the Revolutionary Guards are trying to conceal what really happened."

The Guards are investigating the possibility that the explosion was the result of sabotage, the officials said. There have been a number of unexplained explosions in Iran of late, including on at a mosque in Shiraz during a military exhibition, and another at a missile site.

The West believes Iran has been increasing its military support of Hezbollah recently, in case of a future armed confrontation over its nuclear program.

Iran is arming Hezbollah with missiles sent via Turkey, according to intelligence received in Israel. Turkish authorities are unaware of the arms shipments, which are in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the Second Lebanon War.

Some of the weapons include long-range missiles that are being transfered through flights using Turkey's airspace, as well as overland though Turkey, under the guise of civilian cargo. From Turkey, the missiles are transfered to Syria and then Lebanon. Turkey has not permitted the use of its territory for such transfers.

Sources in Jerusalem said earlier this year that Israel is concerned Iran might start moving weapons to Hezbollah by means of ships that anchor in the Beirut port.

The sources said oversight of marine vessels by UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) was not efficient enough to enforce an embargo on weapons shipments into Lebanon and to pinpoint such shipments.

2) Obama's Berlin Transfiguration Speech
By Lee Cary

Obama's Berlin speech was the platform for his transfiguration into the presumptive victorious candidate for global leadership.

Back on February 13, 2008, American Thinker ran an article entitled "Obama, The Global Candidate" that predicted this:

"Obama will be packaged as the Global Candidate to whom the world's poor and oppressed look for signs of hope for the future. His mixed race and varied national backgrounds symbolize his connectivity with peoples across the planet. The adulation felt for him beyond America offers the U.S. a chance for enhanced strength and repaired credibility worldwide. Sure, he's an American citizen, but he's also a global citizen, a man of the world."


Meanwhile, the MSM will make no effort to peel away the veneer of conceptual vapidity surrounding Obama's seductive oratory. They will not push him for clarity or details. Instead, they will be his campaign's de facto PR firm."

It happened in Berlin.

Obama's handlers may have read Clarice Feldman's, July 9, 2008 American Thinker article entitled "Memo from Leni Riefenstadl," and staged his transfiguration in Leni's homeland. Larry J. Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics and a frequent commentator for FOX News, described the audience's response as a "rapturous reception." Sounds like a religious experience.

The text of his speech was clear and well-written, and delivered entirely in English, from the one who earlier ridiculed Americans for not being multilingual, before a German audience. The stated messages are generally unremarkable, and included these:

* My being here displays an improbably political story.
* Berlin was a key location in the Cold War.
* The people of Cold War Berlin hoped for a better future.
* The Berlin Airlift worked.
* Today we face new challenges that include terrorism, global warming, unsecured nuclear material, illegal drug traffickers, violence associated with impoverished peoples, and genocide in Africa.
* The greatest walls -- playing off of the Berlin Wall analogy -- are those that divide us as peoples.
* (Note: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s name was not mentioned.)


More important were the implied meta-messages that included these:

* When I'm POTUS, I'll treat Europe more deferentially than has Bush. You'll like me better.

"True partnerships and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other, and most of all, trust each other."


* I'll put more emphasis on fighting global poverty.

"This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created and share its benefits more equitably." (snip) "Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the source of AIDS in our time?"


* I'll take the reduction of carbon emissions more seriously than has the Bush administration. I care about the planet.

"Let us resolve that all nations -- including my own -- will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere."


* I share your dislike of the image of America projected by the Bush administration. I'll fix it.

"Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law?" (snip) "I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions."


* I'm the presumptive POTUS who will lead the world. This is my time.

"People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time." "People of Berlin - and people of the world - the scale of our challenge is great."


We should note one particularly important statement. Obama said,

"And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close."


That one sentence contains three meta-messages:

* I agree with you. Bush was wrong to overthrow Saddam Hussein. But, nevertheless...
* Help me rebuild the Iraq that Bush destroyed so we can withdraw. (Does he assume the military portion of the fight is effectively over? Sounds like it.)
* That will enable me to finally end the war America was wrong to start.


So, what do we make of this speech? The answer is -- it doesn't matter. The speech was ancillary to the event. It carried no news. The German audience was merely a European stage prop. The target audience was (1) the old news media, who will fawn over the sort of positive audience reception there that Bush will never enjoy, and (2) undecided voters back at home.

Obama's aim was to build his image as a global statesman. Did he do that? He may have to some extent, but another statesman who flew the other way across the Atlantic delivered a far better speech about America.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke before the Congress of the United States on November 7, 2007, these were among his words.

"...From the very beginning, the American dream meant proving to all mankind that freedom, justice, human rights and democracy were no utopia but were rather the most realistic policy there is and the most likely to improve the fate of each and every person.

"Here, both the humblest and most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That's what constitutes the moral value of America. America did not teach men the idea of freedom; she taught them how to practice it. And she fought for this freedom whenever she felt it to be threatened somewhere in the world. It was by watching America grow that men and women understood that freedom was possible.

What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind.

I remember the Berlin crisis and Kennedy who unhesitatingly risked engaging the United States in the most destructive of wars so that Europe could preserve the freedom for which the American people had already sacrificed so much. No one has the right to forget. Forgetting, for a person of my generation, would be tantamount to self-denial."


Isn't it odd that the French President understands America better than a man who has at least a fifty-percent chance to become the next American President?

In the audacity of his advancing megalomania, Barack Obama imagines that he has a manifest destiny to bring hope, not just to America, but to the world.

Perhaps had he been aware of recent comments by former NASA astronaut (Apollo 14) and moon-walker Dr. Edgar Mitchell, he would have expanded the range of his audience to include extraterrestrials. They, too, deserve hope.

3) Obama Tears Down the Wall
By John Nichols

Barack Obama had several responsibilities when he embarked on the global tour that John McCain dared him to make.

The young senator from Illinois needed to establish himself as a credible world leader by going to Iraq and Afghanistan evidencing both his recognition of George Bush's manifest mistakes and his willingness and ability to wage a functional fight against legitimate terrorist threats. Check!

He needed to establish himself as respected commander-in-chief by not just appearing for photo-opportunities with troops in the field but by connecting with soldiers so that that all Americans who recognize their confidence in the man who seeks the authority to send these young men and women into life-and-death battles. Check!

He needed to establish himself as a diplomat capable of finessing the demands of Israelis and Palestinians in a manner that might suggest that, unlike Bill Clinton or George Bush, he is committed to advancing a difficult Middle East peace process from Day 1 of his presidency. Check!

And, of course, he needed to confirm his status as the greatest political orator of the era by delivering far more than just a stump speech in Berlin. Check!

How impressive did Obama's speech have to be to the citizens of Berlin, who greeted the Democrat who would be president with chants of the candidate's "Yes We Can" slogan?

Before Obama's arrival, London's Telegraph newspaper, a bible at the very least of the English-speaking European establishment, published a list of the 25 greatest political speeches of the past century.

"When Senator Barack Obama steps onto the stage on Thursday, next to Berlin's Victory column, the world will be expecting a momentous speech," the Telegraph observed. "The bar is high because, as even his detractors concede, Mr Obama is a remarkable orator. He first shot to prominence when he moved many at the 2004 Democratic convention to tears. He announced he would run for president last year with a beautifully-crafted address in Abraham Lincoln's home town of Springfield, Illinois. A pivotal moment of his epic primary battle with Hillary Clinton was his Philadelphia speech about race after the incendiary utterances of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright threatened to scupper his White House bid. But what makes a truly great speech?"

The definition chosen by the newspaper – "rhetorical brilliance, originality, historical importance, lasting influence, delivery and inspirational quality" -- was broad enough to include Obama even before he reached Berlin.

His 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote made the list at No. 25, after addresses by Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Ironically, the Kennedy (""Ich bin ein Berliner") and Reagan ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") speeches were made in Berlin, not far from the spot where Obama spoke on Thursday evening. And the Hitler and Churchill speeches – respectively declaring Germany's determination to wage a world war and Britain's determination to win that war – were not unrelated to the city.

Such was the weight of history that Obama carried with him to the podium.

It was not just the crowd in Berlin that greeted him.

The whole world really was watching – including aides and allies of the McCain campaign who, frustrated by the success of their Democratic rival's global positioning, would be searching for some sign of a John Kerry-esque "Frenchness."

The McCain camp did not get what it was looking for.

Obama began his speech on a profoundly patriotic note.

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father – my grandfather – was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning – his dream – required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.

That is why I'm here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.

That was good, but easy for a candidate who has made this rhetoric central to his appeal.

Where Obama hit his mark was with the bridge that linked his Americanism essay to the world. He did it as Kennedy and Reagan had before him, by celebrating the historic support of the United States for the people of a city that became the symbol of the Cold War.

Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.

On that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin. The rubble of this city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe, while in the West, America, Britain, and France took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade.

This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to extinguish the last flame of freedom in Berlin.

The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.

And that's when the airlift began – when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of this city.

The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold.

But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city's mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. "There is only one possibility," he said. "For us to stand together united until this battle is won…The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin!"

People of the world – look at Berlin!

Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.

There was the theme.

There was the heart and the soul of Obama's message.

If reconciliation between the United States and Europe was possible after the battles of World War II, then surely it is possible after the battles of the Bush-Cheney era.

In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth – that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.

Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

Yes, that was an echo of Ronald Reagan that Berlin and the world heard Thursday night.

To be sure, Obama's critics will do their best to miss it.

But those who chose to give the most significant international policy address yet delivered by the man who would be president an honest hearing will be hard-pressed to suggest that he did not stand as tall as the great communicator in Berlin.

Great speeches are rarely recognized for their significance at the time when they are delivered.

History makes them epic. Reagan's "tear down this wall" line became the stuff of history when the wall was torn down.

Obama's "the walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand" line will become the stuff of history if and when an Obama presidency achieves not just a reconciliation but a new era of global cooperation – on issues of peace, poverty and global warming.

That is a tall order.

Taller, indeed, than any of those placed before Obama when he began his improbable journey.

But on another historic night in Berlin, when the whole world was watching and listening, it seemed… possible.

4) No. 44 Has Spoken
By Gerhard Spörl

Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessäule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States. He is more than ambitious -- he wants to lay claim to become the president of the world.

It was a ton to absorb -- and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America's errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It's amazing anyone could pack such a potpourri of issues into the space of a speech that lasted less than 30 minutes.



So what sticks? That Barack Obama is a passionate politician who is fixated on -- and takes very seriously -- his desire for a better world. That he is an impressive speaker who knows how to casually draw his audience into his image of the world -- one who doesn't have any need to resort to the kind of cheap effects that tend to prompt the uproarious applause of an audience. That he is a typical American -- an idealist in the true spirit of the American success story who is now very casually making his claim to becoming something akin to the president of the world.


He also could have said: We are a world power, the only one on the planet at the moment, and I intend to act as if this were the case. But you're also allowed to participate in the attempt to try to save the world -- at least a bit of it. In that sense I am different from George W. Bush, very different. Indeed, Barack Obama has his own sound -- it's more utopian, he speaks of the general human desire for better conditions for all of humanity; and he speaks of the longing for strong and dynamic presidents and chancellors who are capable of acting on a global scale. With this drive and this radiance, he managed to drive Hillary Clinton out of the campaign. It is also the way he will outpace John McCain by November 4. It is the way he took the hearts of Americans by storm, and it is the way he is now taking Europe by storm.


By Subverted
Anyone who saw him make the short way from the Victory Column in Berlin on Thursday to the podium saw a man with the serious gait of a basketball player, a man who seemed young, decisive and focused. For those who witnessed his appearance in Berlin, it is hard to imagine that John McCain has any chance. McCain is 25 years his senior, a man who because of the torture he endured in Vietnam is in constant pain -- unable to comb his hair or lift his arm in celebration.

Europe is witnessing the 44th president of the United States during this trip. Anyone who listens to him realizes that he is not only ambitious but will also make demands. In the inner circles of Angela Merkel's Chancellery, he is reportedly seen as a pleasant person, one who arouses curiosity.

However, he is also certain to demand the help of the Germans, Brits and French in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's not going to let NATO shirk its duty -- and therein lie the perils of the engaging "we" and the catchy "Yes, we can." Otherwise all these hard-nosed Europeans will hope and pray that the future President Obama isn’t really all that serious about the saving the world of tomorrow, the polar caps, Darfur and the poppy harvest over in Afghanistan.



George W. Bush is yesterday, the Texas version of the arrogant world power. Obama is all about today -- the "everybody really just wants to be brothers and save the world" utopia. As for us, we who sometimes admire and sometimes curse this somewhat anemic, pragmatic democracy, we will have to quickly get used to Barack Obama, the new leader of a lofty democracy that loves those big nice words -- words that warm our hearts and alarm our minds.

Let's allow ourselves to be warmed today, by this man at the Victory Column. Then we'll take a further look.

5) Maliki Votes for Obama
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- In a stunning upset, Barack Obama this week won the Iraq primary. When Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not once but several times expressed support for a U.S. troop withdrawal on a timetable that accorded roughly with Obama's 16-month proposal, he not only legitimized the plan. He relieved Obama of a major political liability by blunting the charge that, in order to appease the MoveOn left, Obama was willing to jeopardize the astonishing success of the surge and risk losing a war that is finally being won.

Maliki's endorsement left the McCain campaign and the Bush administration deeply discomfited. They underestimated Maliki's sophistication and cunning.

What is Maliki thinking? Clearly, he believes that the Iraq War is won. Al-Qaeda is defeated, the Sunni insurgency is in abeyance, the Shiite extremists are scattered and marginalized. There will, of course, be some continued level of violence, recurring challenges to the authority of the central government and perhaps even mini-Tet offensives by both Shiite and Sunni terrorists trying to demoralize U.S. and Iraqi public opinion in the run-up to their respective elections. But in Maliki's view, the strategic threats to the unity of the state and to the viability of the new democratic government are over.

Maliki believes that his armed forces are strong enough to sustain the new Iraq with minimal U.S. help. He may be overconfident, as he has been repeatedly in estimating his army's capacities, most recently in launching a somewhat premature attack on militias in Basra that ultimately required U.S. and British support to succeed. And he is certainly more confident of his own capacities than is Gen. David Petraeus.

Whether warranted or not, Maliki's very confidence allows him to set out a rapid timetable for U.S. withdrawal, albeit conditioned on continuing improvement in the security situation -- a caveat Obama generally omits. But Maliki calculates that no U.S. president, whatever his campaign promises, would be insane enough to lose Iraq after all that has been gained and then be saddled with a newly chaotic Iraq that would poison his presidency.

So Maliki is looking ahead, beyond the withdrawal of major U.S. combat forces, and toward the next stage: the long-term relationship between America and Iraq.

With whom does he prefer to negotiate the status-of-forces agreement that will not be concluded during the Bush administration? Obama or McCain?

Obama, reflecting the mainstream Democratic view, simply wants to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. Two years ago, it was because the war was lost. Now, we are told, it is to save Afghanistan. The reasons change, but the conclusion is always the same. Out of Iraq. Banish the very memory. Leave as small and insignificant a residual force as possible. And no long-term bases.

McCain, like George Bush, envisions the U.S. seizing the fruits of victory of a bloody and costly war by establishing an extensive strategic relationship that would not only make the new Iraq a strong ally in the war on terror but would also provide the U.S. with the infrastructure and freedom of action to project American power regionally, as do U.S. forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea.

For example, we might want to retain an air base to deter Iran, protect regional allies and relieve our naval forces, which today carry much of the burden of protecting the Gulf, thus allowing redeployment elsewhere.

Any Iraqi leader would prefer a more pliant American negotiator because all countries -- we've seen this in Germany, Japan and South Korea -- want to maximize their own sovereign freedom of action while still retaining American protection.

It is no mystery who would be the more pliant U.S. negotiator. The Democrats have long been protesting the Bush administration's hard bargaining for strategic assets in postwar Iraq. Maliki knows the Democrats are so sick of this war, so politically and psychologically committed to its liquidation, so intent on doing nothing to vindicate "Bush's war," that they simply want out with the least continued American involvement.

Which is why Maliki gave Obama that royal reception, complete with the embrace of his heretofore problematic withdrawal timetable.

Obama was likely to be president anyway. He is likelier now still. Moreover, he not only agrees with Maliki on minimizing the U.S. role in postwar Iraq. He now owes him. That's why Maliki voted for Obama, casting the earliest and most ostentatious absentee ballot of this presidential election.

6) Obamamania grips Europe

Barack Obama delivers a largely successful speech to a massive crowd in Berlin


BARACK OBAMA set himself a difficult task for his extraordinary appearance in Berlin on Thursday July 24th. He said that he came not to campaign but to deliver a “substantive address” on the pointy-headed subject of trans-Atlantic relations. Yet the crowd was expected to number in the tens of thousands. The listeners were mainly European, but the real audience was in America. He needed to tell voters what they want to hear, while rousing those who had flocked to see him. He sought to remind people of American presidents who had become legends by winning Berliners’ hearts and minds, but could not afford to appear presumptuous.

In the end he largely pulled it off, though the speech was not quite as substantive as advertised and the mood did not quite attain euphoria. The police estimated that over 200,000 people—perhaps the largest live audience that Mr Obama has ever addressed—thronged the boulevard that stretches between the Prussian Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate. Despite jams at the entrances and poor reception at the back of the crowd, most did not appear to be disappointed. He was “cosmopolitan, not only American,” said Garunya Karunahramoorthy, a student of international relations from Berlin. In bowing to a foreign audience, Mr Obama seemed to give new life to the idea of the American century.

Mr Obama achieved that by fusing an older tradition of American beneficence with a contemporary emphasis on multilateralism, which he was careful to call “partnership”. The Berlin setting gave him a chance to make partnership seem the most patriotic thing in the world, and he exploited it to the full. He began by reminding Berliners that America had helped them to break the Soviet-imposed blockade of 1948-49 and to knock down the Berlin wall four decades later. But he acknowledged that the relationship had lately become troubled. “On both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart”, he admitted. Europe began to see America “as part of what has gone wrong”, overlooking its sacrifices for “freedom around the globe”. And America, he confessed, had “made our share of mistakes”.

The bits of Mr Obama’s rhetoric that were most popular with the locals were aimed at convincing them that America would make fewer mistakes in an Obama presidency. It would “reject torture and stand for the rule of law”, strive for “a world without nuclear weapons” and follow the Germans’ example in setting ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions that cause global warming. The American Mars would no longer trample the sensitivities of the European Venus. “America has no better partner than Europe”, he declared.

If Mr Obama had left it at that, his Republican rivals might have put together a case that he was keener to defend European values than American ones. But he was staunch in defence of American interests, and made it plain that partnership would come with a price. “We must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it”, he declared. “Iran…must abandon its nuclear ambitions.” But the United States cannot accomplish such tasks on its own. And that means that reluctant Europeans—Germans in particular—will have to contribute more than they have done to such ventures as the war in Afghanistan. “My country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success.”

Participants in Mr Obama’s meetings with German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier report that he charmed and impressed them. The throng was also content, although one man rightly wondered “how he could deliver” on everything he promised.

Mr Obama’s view of the world is no sunnier than George Bush’s: it is equally menaced by terrorists and weapons of mass destruction and genocide and more so by global warming. But Mr Obama promises—in fact demands—a more co-operative approach to solving such problems. New walls threaten to divide religions, tribes and classes. The answer, he said, attempting to sound like Kennedy and Reagan rolled into one, is to tear them down.