Barack Obama: two really good moves

Barack Obama's approach has been spot on so far.

I'm not saying that everything he's done has been perfect, because I'm obviously not aware of everything he's done. But he has made some spectacularly good moves.

The first really good move was his choice for gaining the funding he needed to mount his campaign. Had he simply followed everyone else and approached wealthy individuals for large, one-off donations, I very much doubt that he would have been anywhere near as successful. America may well have either Hillary Clinton or John McCain for president.

Instead, he went to the public, casting about online for anything anyone could spare. In a very real way, this is like getting people to vote for him twice: once with a campaign contribution, and once in a voting booth. So by the time November 4 came around, he already knew (without having to resort to polls) that a significant number of Americans believed in him strongly enough to support his campaign financially.

That belief is self-sustaining. You don't throw money into a pit from which you never expect to see a return. If you're supporting a candidate financially, you're saying to the world that you believe he's going to win - and you're very likely to tell your family, your neighbor, and anyone else who will listen. Which means that Barack Obama effectively had many, many people campaigning on his behalf.

His second really good move was more recent. How many of us haven't seen at least the highlights of his interview with Al Arabiya? In it, he offered his respect for the Muslim people, and mentioned repeatedly that the US was looking to make friends with the Muslim nations of the world.

This position cannot help but have massive ramifications.

Think about it like this. George Bush treated the people of the Middle Eastern nations as enemies, good only for hiding Al Qaeda operatives and target practice. The end result is that countries which previously didn't care about the US one way or another now hate everything even hinting at America. This, in turn, makes for a rich breeding ground for terrorists. After all, what's a man to do if a country is responsible for the deaths of his children, his wife and parents? If it happened to you, wouldn't you want to strike back as hard as you could? Wouldn't you therefore seek out an organization known for its militant actions, with the intention of enlisting?

Barack Obama is holding his hand out in friendship. Not to terrorists - he was quite clear about that - but to Middle Eastern countries.

He's offering Muslim nations America's respect. It'll no doubt take a long time for the damage caused by Bush's war to fully be forgotten (it wouldn't surprise me if suicide bombers and terrorists acting within the next twenty years all claimed inspiration from Bush's actions), but the end results can only be positive.

What happens if Muslim nations find themselves with America as a friend? They'll find it harder and harder to justify harboring Al Qaeda terrorists.

What happens if ordinary Muslims stop viewing America as the enemy? They will be less likely to enlist in terrorist activities.

To me, it's the obvious route to peace. Well done so far, Barack Obama. Your actions are making the world a better place. Let's hope they continue to do so.

By : DnA Changes the World