The US Presidential Election: Time to Decide.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year you will be painfully aware that on Tuesday (6/11/12) voters in the United States of America will chose their President for the next four years. Unlike in 2008 which saw two untested candidates vying for the top job the 2012  race is between the Republican challenger Mitt Romney and the Democrat incumbent Barack Obama who has been doing the job for the past four years. Therefore I consider the most important factor in deciding which candidate to back is Obama's record as President. Obviously I have neither the time nor the space to review every decision he's made and every policy Obama's implemented over the past four years so instead I will concentrate on what I consider to be his greatest success and his greatest failure.

Obama's greatest success has undoubtedly been the economy. I know that with unemployment up close to 8% this might seem like a controversial thing to say but the important thing to remember is that in the months leading up to Obama taking up office the US and world economies experienced one of the worst collapses in history which left the US in deep recession with GDP shrinking by an average of 3.2% a quarter and close to 1 million jobs being lost a month. Following that Britain went into a double-dip recession from which it is only just beginning to emerge, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland both required IMF bailouts and Greece went into a such a deep depression that in several parts of the country people have actually given up on capitalism and started to use a barter system instead. During this time the only two western nations that have consistently recorded growth month on month are the US and Germany. The Germans are actually cheating slightly because along with the rest of the former Soviet bloc East Germany is still woefully underdeveloped meaning that getting economic growth there is a bit like playing tennis with the net down. So although his main objective has been to limit the damage Obama has excelled on the economy and probably would have been able to do more if it hadn't been for an obstructive Republican dominated Congress that seemed to be trying to make the US economy worse in order to use it as an election issue to help their candidate take back the White House.

Obama's greatest failure has undoubtedly been in foreign policy specifically in dealing with Iran and the so-called Arab Spring. The first mistake was the failure to recognise the fact that no-one in Israel is actually that bothered about Iran's nuclear program. However Zionist hawks within Israel have always been very keen to use the issue as an excuse to mount an unsuccessful attack on Israel in the hope of provoking a counter attack on Israel from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah would then be very quickly defeated allowing Israel to seize great swathes of territory in southern Lebanon possibly going as far as the Litani river. Although Israel would eventually give most of the territory back this would significantly alter peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine over the two state solution. By attempting to avoid war and contain the situation by placing truly crippling sanctions in Iran all Obama has done is spoil the very delicate diplomatic dance that all sides in the region have happily been doing for years. By taking Iranian oil off the world market Obama also succeed in weakening the US' global strategic position by making the nation more dependent on Saudi Arabia - a bunch of people so unpleasant US support for the Saudi Monarchy was one of the major reasons Al Qadea attacked the US on 9/11. This strategic problem was compounded by the decision to intervene in Libya which also took Libyan oil off the global market. Although the US President's first responsibility is to the US people that intervention had a very negative effect for people living across the middle-east and north Africa. For example more then a year after the fall of Muammer Qaddafi Libya is still sadly looking closer to a failed state then a prosperous democracy. The massive influx of weapons into the region allowed Al Qaeda backed fighters to seize control of a very large area in the north of Mali. The chaos caused also served to destabilise Egypt and derail the promise of their revolution leaving them still without a constitution, a mildy Islamist President who rules by diktat and power saving measures being introduced to deal with daily blackouts. From the US perspective though the biggest failure of the Libya intervention is that it has left the country so hugely dependent on Saudi Arabia and it's oil that it had no choice other then to go along with the bloodbath that is currently taking place in Syria that will kill more people then the civil war in Iraq, could well re-ignite the civil war in Iraq and will certainly dump a large number of heavily armed and battle hardened Jihadists right on Israel's border. Therefore I seriously think that Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice should now both be in prison for their support for the Libya intervention. However I seem to remember that the Republicans only contribution to the debate was to call for more and faster military intervention in Iran, Libya and Syria.

As for Mitt Romney while he is clearly more intelligent, compassionate and capable then the last Republican President I am struggling to find something positive to say about him. For example his economic plan to increase the US national debt through $5 trillion of tax cuts and $2 trillion of spending increases is nothing short of idiotic. Although it clearly has a lot of support across the Republican base the only way Romney supporters have found to justify the plan to people who work in economics and finance (such as the Economist magazine) is to claim that Romney is simply lying in order to get elected and has no intention of actually implementing such a stupid plan.

Even Romney's most frequently claimed qualification for the job of President - his time spent in business - actually counts as a disadvantage in my eyes. That's because the world of business and the world of politics are very different places. In the world of business two people will agree on a plan because it will make them both money. Therefore they will shake hands on a deal before going off and trying their hardest to make that plan a success. The world of politics, especially international diplomacy is much more about power, domination, manipulation, exploitation and point scoring. Therefore two people will often shake hands on a deal before going off and trying their hardest to stab each other in the back.I think Romney will find it very difficult to adapt to this world which brings me on to Romney's greatest weakness - his lack of charisma and his rather robotic way of talking to people. Although it is stupid and irrational the ability to read and talk to people is very important to a world leader. Having watched him throughout the campaign and especially during the debates Romney is clearly nowhere near as good as Obama at this and is prone to making school boy errors. This is a major disadvantage in a President because if you have a President that is weak on an area of policy they can always bring in an expert in the field to act as an adviser and help them out. However when it comes to sitting down with another world leader at something like a G20 Summit and talking them into seeing things America's way that is something the President can only do for himself. Obama's strength in this area has clearly helped the US significantly over the past four years because while Obama has made some mistakes the fact he's been able to get the international community to go along with those mistakes owes a lot to the fact that most other world leaders actually like Obama on a personal level and enjoy spending time with him. Therefore they don't want to upset him by saying no to him.

So in summary if I was able to vote in the US Presidential Election I would vote for Barack Obama because I happen to think the Republican's 2008 slogan was correct. The White House is no place for on the job training and the US really can't afford to start having to train another one so soon.

18:25 on 4/11/12