The Barack Obama phenomenon in US politics

"America, it's time to start bringing our troops home. It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war. Letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Sunni and Shia to come to the table and find peace."

The words are those of Barack Obama, the second strongest Democratic Party contender after Hillary Clinton, to make a bid for the US Presidency at the next hustings for the prime political position. Besides his strong dissenting policy position on Iraq what is new about the 45 year old Democratic Senator from Illinois is that he is of Afro-American origin, having been born in Hawaii to a white American mother and a Kenyan father. On paper, therefore, Obama hails from one of America's many "ethnic minorities", which groups by 2050 are expected to constitute around half of the US population - an ever - burgeoning constituency which could swing the American vote in favour of a "black" US President before long.

The emergence in American public life of vibrant "black" personalities, such as Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama prefigures a change in the power relations among America's whites and its so-called ethnic minorities, with the latter coming to wield more influence and power in American public affairs in the not too distant future. Sheer numbers and greater access to public education and other enabling and empowering factors in the American welfare system are likely to consolidate the power and influence of these "ethnic minorities" and help in changing the US' traditional image as a white majority state in the decades to come.

This should be no cause for discomfiture in any quarter. It only goes to prove that the US' image as a land of opportunity is not without foundation.

It testifies to the relative openness of American society and establishes that sound foundations have been laid to enable America to evolve towards a multicultural plural polity, which, to a degree at least accommodates the power aspirations of those who are seen as ethnic minorities.

The importance of the likes of Barack Obama in the US political process at the moment is that they could articulate alternative standpoints on vital national issues, such as the American military involvement in the Iraqi crisis, and galvanize public opinion in support of these policy positions. They thereby enrich public debate and add vibrancy to the democratic process by helping to broad-base national policy.

All in all, they render official policy more sensitive and receptive to alternative policy positions on national questions.

Based on these considerations, Obama's entry to the US Presidential race could be considered as most timely. It comes at a time when US foreign policy is itself coming under heavy questioning by sections of the American public. It is already common knowledge, for instance, that a sizeable section of the public is opposed to the US military intervention in Iraq. Besides, the political Executive is on a collision course with Congress - which represents public opinion - on the correct policy course in Iraq. Right now, there is substantial public opinion in favour of a deescalation of the US military presence in Iraq. Obama is even taking up the call of the public that "the boys should be brought back home."

Claiming that "It's time to turn the page, right here and now," Obama goes on to say that what has prevented the US from facing the challenges of the day is "the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial."

It is possible to see in these pronouncements a conception of the US as a great moral leader and not as a mere military power. It is essentially on the latter path that the current political leadership is taking the US.

What is needed, however, in the opinion of Obama and a sizeable section of the US public is that the US should be a moral leader which would help heal global divisions based on power considerations. Obama smacks of a catalyst who could help the US to traverse this moral path.

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