Russia sees Barack Obama as genuine leader of big state

US president marked 100 days of his stay in the office on April 29. On the one hand, Obama has managed to make a number of positive changes. The relations between the United States and Russia have improved during this period. On the other hand, Obama has failed to soften the blow of the financial crisis.

Photo: Russia sees Barack Obama as genuine leader of big state

Russia sees Barack Obama as genuine leader of big state

When touring Europe in April, Barack Obama said that the USA was prepared to listen to opinions of its partners. He also said that the United States considers itself exceptional just like other countries consider themselves exceptional. Obama explained that the USA was changing its foreign politics to listen to other countries’ opinions.

The new US president attempted to even up on a part of Bush’s legacy. Obama decided to close the notorious Guantanamo prison in January. He avoids harsh statements criticizing Iraq and North Korea . To crown it all, Obama decided to pull out US troops from Iraq and focus more attention on Afghanistan.

Obama is closely associated with the improvement of US-Russian relations. It was Barack Obama who pointed out the common interests of the two superpowers in the field of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, the struggle against the crisis and the cooperation on Afghan issues.

However, major differences are still there. Obama did not pay any attention to Russia’s suggestion about the need to create a new reserve currency. Like Bush, Obama criticizes Russia for recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The US president has not said anything definitive about the US intention to deploy elements of its missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The world financial crisis is an extremely difficult challenge that Obama has to deal with. He did not prove to be a wizard who would come and change everything for the better. Real estate prices are declining, the unemployment is growing along with inflation, and there is no recipe of to how to struggle with all this.

It goes without saying that 100 days is a very short term to judge Obama on his achievements and failures.

“One should not judge the US president too strictly. A hundred days is a bit longer than three months, it goes about the very beginning of his rule. One can only see if Obama keeps his pre-election promises or not. For the time being, he sticks to what he was saying. We will see Obama’s work, whether it is successful or not, closer to 2012,” Viktor Kremenyuk of the Institute for the USA and Canada told Pravda.ru.

As far as foreign politics is concerned, there are positive changes about it too. I have to say that Obama’s policies are less dangerous to the world in comparison with the policies of George W. Bush. He outlined the strategy to pull out US troops from Iraq, which was impossible during the times of the Bush’s administration,” the expert continued.

“As for relations with Russia, it seems that the two countries will finally find points of tangency. Obama tries to make the relations between the two countries more substantial and avoids scandals on such globally unimportant issues as Georgia and Ukraine,” Kremenyuk said.

We also have to acknowledge the fact that Barack Obama does strike an attitude and is willing to deal with smaller countries. He acts as a genuine leader of a big state at this point. This could be seen from his recent meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who publicly refers to the United States as an enemy. Such a meeting per se became a ground-breaking achievement.

Vadim Trukhachev