Barack obama

President Obama said recently that the United States cannot simply play ‘whack-a-mole’ in the Middle East. The only appropriate response to which is to say, ‘Yes you can.’ We can all understand why the President might be feeling a little tired over all this. For nearly six gruelling years he has been calling the troops home and declaring that the war is over. Making that speech repeatedly, with the facts so continuously contradicting it, might get to anyone. The successful raid on the bin Laden compound in Pakistan was meant to have put an end to al-Qaeda. Iraq was meant to have been solved when President Obama ordered US troops

President Obama has just announced that the US is prepared to launch strikes against ISIS in Iraq if the situation on the ground requires it. The US will send up to 300 military advisers to the country. It is understood that they will provide intelligence on what targets US air power should hit. But Obama stressed that they would not be involved in combat roles. In a sign of the US’s deep disenchantment with the current Iraqi government, administration officials have told the Washington Post that they are working to see if a new Iraqi government can be put together following this April’s parliamentary elections. The US would like to see

There are two types of Australian male: the ‘julios’, a modern import who likes soft drinks and hair product, and the ‘nerds’, the traditional breed who like beer and Sheilas. Tony Abbott is a nerd. On his recent visit to America, Abbott could not have done less to counter national stereotypes. The customised surfboard he gave to ‘the dude-in-chief’, President Obama, could only have been bettered in the nerds’ catalogue by a crate of 4X and a cork hat. Mr S is looking forward to the White House releasing pictures of the board in action.

Maybe it’s a special relationship after all. President Obama has given David Cameron and the Better Together campaign a rhetorical boost this afternoon. At a press conference held at the G7 in Brussels, the president said: ‘With respect to the future of the United Kingdom, obviously ultimately this is up to the people of Great Britain. ‘In the case of Scotland, there is a referendum process in place and it’s up to the people of Scotland. ‘But I would to say the United Kingdom has been an extraordinary partner to us. From the outside at least, it looks like things have worked pretty well. ‘We obviously have a deep interest

Have you seen Barack Obama’s appearance on the satirical interview show Between Two Ferns? What did you think? According to some pundits, it is amazingly funny. Obama is the ‘best Between Two Ferns guest ever’, says Oliver Franklin at GQ. I must be missing something, because I found it painful and somewhat depressing. There a couple of quite good moments, granted – such as when Obama is busy plugging Affordable Healthcare and the host, Zach Galifianakis, says ‘Is this what they mean by drones?’ – but the rest is just a bit crap. It is weirdly off, too. At times Obama, trying to be dead pan, just seems to miss

When Barack Obama warned Vladimir Putin that “there will be costs” for violating Ukrainian sovereignty, I doubt the Kremlin worried too much. The Syria crisis taught is all about Obama and his ‘red lines’. This is a president who recoils at the idea  of any new entanglement, whose attention is on the Pacific rather than Eurasia and is less worried than any of his recent predecessors about Russian aggression. And that’s what makes this situation so dangerous: Putin wants to know where the new red lines lie, and may keep pushing until he finds out. His asking Russia’s parliament for the authority to use troops is, I suspect, is a

‘Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can!’ With these exuberant assurances, the young candidate, buoyed by an unexpectedly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses, vowed to carry on his crusade. One year later, in January 2009, the candidate became president and set out to make good on his promises. That Barack Obama possessed the ability to heal the nation and repair the world seemed in many quarters all but self-evident. As he donned the mantle of the ‘most powerful man in the world’, the expectations that had lifted him into the Oval Office qualified as nothing short of messianic. A dark and

In the past few days, my colleagues on the Guardian have been publishing stories of national and international significance – indeed, if truth be told, they have been publishing them for most of the autumn. The international scoop was that America’s National Security Agency tapped Angela Merkel’s mobile phone (along with the phones of many more world leaders). As the shock of the revelation has sunk in, most observers have grasped that the shrug-of-the-shoulder explanation that ‘spies spy’, doesn’t really work in this instance. Spies in democratic countries are meant to be under democratic control. Elected politicians have few problems authorising surveillance on their country’s enemies. But when it comes

Phew! America has stopped banging its head against the debt ceiling. For now. The world’s pre-eminent power can carry on ruining itself for a while longer — until the next boring-but-incredibly-important fiscal crisis hits. (The dreaded sequester is next up, oh joy). There’ll be plenty more soul-searching essays about the eclipse of American power. But it’s the poor Republicans who face a more urgent existential crisis. Their party’s strategy for handling the issue has been confused and inept.  At every turn, the Democrats have managed (somehow) to present themselves as reasonable, while the Republicans have seemed at best cynical and divided, at worst leaderless and delusional. They have emerged from the