Opinion Obama’s luck by chance

For a politician nothing matters quite as much as being able to move the spirit. Years may go by,history appear to stand still. Then,in the space of weeks,history accelerates,great events cascade upon each other,and the leader able to embody,define and propel them forward becomes forever identified with this transformative tide of hope.

In June 2009,Obama said in Cairo: “I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from people; the freedom to live as you choose.” Obama’s Mideast policy then veered this way and that. He struggled to find a consistent tone on Israel. He struggled to convince Muslims of the sincerity of his outreach. So it’s hard to trace any direct strategic line between the Cairo speech and the revolutionary events that led to his wonderful 2/11 summation of the fall of Mubarak: “We saw mothers and fathers carrying their children on their shoulders to show them what true freedom might look like.”

And yet,and yet! It has to be said that Obama intuited something,or so it now appears. He got lucky.

When,in celebrating the Egyptian people’s peaceful triumph,he quoted Martin Luther King on this great awakening of Arab peoples,he looked a president in full,a man ensconced on the right side of history.

By contrast,the American right has found itself tied up in knots,wondering how to disentangle the words “freedom” and “Arab,” the first demanding its hard-wired allegiance,the second its Israel-dictated scepticism.

This is an uprising of Arabs,by Arabs,for Arabs. Obama has managed to seize this moment without stealing it. Yes,there were wobbles. But he was fast to hail Tunisians fighting for their rights,he pushed the Egyptian transition,he restrained the violent initial instincts of the ruling family in Bahrain,and now he is pressing hard to oust Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. If this is the overdue collapse of a rotten American-backed order in the Middle East,it is also one that suggests the postmortems on American power are premature.

I believe 2011,in its passage from Arab rage to Arab responsibility,can be the true antidote to 2001. How can the West help forge the new regional safe house of emergent Arab democracies? Obama must bring the best minds to bear on that question and a related one: How to coax Israel into seizing this moment to seek peace? I am more hopeful about the world than at any time since 2001. The authoritarian decade,led by China and Russia,has run its course. And the most powerful man in the world happens to be a lucky man.

The New York Times