Obama : Ft .I would give him a seven for action, and a nine for words..
Interesante articulo sobre Obama en el FT
MUCHOS PROYECTOS POCAS REALIDADES
Obama’s first anniversary
The other day, I spoke at the Berkeley hotel the annual CEO dinner held by Walpole, the non-profit group which promotes British-based luxury businesses. There were plenty of tough questions on bankers’ bonuses, Tory tax plans, and India’s economic performance versus China. But the one which got me thinking was: will President Obama do better in his second year than his first?
I answered that expectations were unrealistically high, a point made in my end of year review published in the Weekend FT before Christmas. Obama had to rescue the US economy, recapitalise the banks, and he decided to push for a once-in-a generation reform of health care and negotiate an international deal on climate change. Oh, and he had to mend relations with the Arab world, manage a belligerent Russia, contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, refocus the military effort in Afghanistan and deal with an increasingly confident China which sees superpower status as its manifest destiny.
This year all those problems remain on the table – and more. Iran is particularly fraught because the regime is increasingly on edge, the official crackdown is intensifying, while internal opposition is growing, thanks to courageous leadership on the ground. This month, Obama will have to decide whether to press for UN sanctions. If he goes ahead with economic measures, he risks punishing the people. If he does nothing, he will be accused of being soft by the likes of Dick Cheney and the rest of the Republican party. It’s going to be a very tough year. He will do well to score 7/10. (Last year, I would give him a seven for action, and a nine for words….)
