Kenyan President should be “squirming”, says country’s political analyst

Obama,Obama, Obama!

Obama was never involved in Kenyan politics. He visited the country twice.
Once with Michele in the early 90′s to meet his family and once as a Senator -
This post explains why President Obama did not go to Kenya on this trip – to put pressure on the current Kenyan administration –

Wouldn’t be more effective pressure on the current Kenyan government to visit there and deliver his objections in person?

Hi Danita,
So far, Mr. Obama has accomplished nothing by going to Ghana and meddling in Kenyan politics. Time will show how this will come out, and then we will see what he has accomplished. We may all be surprised.

Hi Danita,
Saying it twice doesn’t make it so.

Hi Danita,
Do you really think one foreign leader is going to change his ways based on Mr. Obama’s speech? Will his cousin in Kenya no be able to get a job without a bribe? Will Mugabe suddenly see the error of his ways? Will peace be breaking out soon in Dafur? Will the pirates of Somalia be taking up fishing? Somehow I don’t think so – things like that take real work, not just speechifying and then moving on to the next topic.

Terry:”Do you really think one foreign leader is going to change his ways based on Mr. Obama’s speech?”
Entirely possible considering the influence his words have in Kenya and the proven susceptibility of that government to mass unrest.
“Will the pirates of Somalia be taking up fishing? Somehow I don’t think so – things like that take real work,”
Liking killing three of them who took an American hostage rather than ransoming him (as is many country’s modus operandi)? And setting up a significant (if too dull for daily news) military presence there? I’m not sure if you’re just ignorant or deliberately misleading.

Timmy . . .
The complete quote in the article above was as follows and it was from a Kenyan student . ..
“I completely agree with President Obama’s decision not to come here,” said Eva a 21-yr-old college student. “He shouldn’t come here. Not until our government agrees to change.”
President Obama did not go to Kenya.
Gotta get your facts straight if you’re going to make any sense.

First of all Timmy, the situation and history in Iran is far different than Kenya, stop making strawman statements.
If it wasn’t for Obama’s outreach we wouldn’t even be seeing a Green revolution in Iran. I find it ironic the very conservatives who wanted to bomb Iran only last November, are now criticizing Obama for not loving Iran enough? LOL

Yes Mike, we have a long history of that. Obama was supposed to change all that. He was the new kind of politician wasn’t he? Or did I misunderstand his campaign? His supporters make excuses for him when he meddles and when he does not meddle. Hope and Change depending on the circumstances I guess. I’ll be sure to read the fine print next time.

Part of the change comes with President Obama preferring to establish communications between people, to find common interests that bring us together and let us better understand each other as peoples, diplomacy and negotiation to affect change rather than direct meddling with the CIA, renditions, tortures, bombing raids, assassination, toppling of governments and so on.
His speeches in Russia and Africa carried strong messages in support of democratic freedoms and liberty from corruption and dictatorships – these are just ‘words’ but the resonate – the man is a good speaker and he and his writers choose their words with great dignity and care.
At the same time, if push comes to shove, he was ready to have three sniper shots fired into the heads of Somali pirates when an American life could be saved effectively and without unbearable international consequences.

Terry, Obama didn’t visit Kenya for several reasons. Firstly, he’s been to Kenya before. From what has been released -remember how mad Obama was when someone tried to actually look at his passport travel data- he has visited several times. Secondly, Obama has gotten some backlash, though US press won’t report it, from his association with his “cousin” Odinga. Obama was even accused of campaigning for his “cousin” Odinga. When Odinga lost his supporters started ethnic violence until the Kenyan constitution was changed to give Odinga a powerful position. Thirdly, Obama’s father was associated with the Kenyan terrorist MauMaus and that is sensitive in certain circles.

In responding to Terry, jhw wrote: Terry:’Do you really think one foreign leader is going to change his ways based on Mr. Obama’s speech?’
“Entirely possible considering the influence his words have in Kenya and the proven susceptibility of that government to mass unrest.”
Entirely possible? Not really. His words were the right ones, I agree. He should speak out on the reforms that African leaders need to make and the need to look forward rather than backward in dealing with today’s problems without placing blame on colonialism alone. I think it is a useful contribution to a large discussion that will continue to go on in Africa.
But it is more than a stretch to suggest that it is possible for one Obama speech to change the behavior of the Kenyan leadership. Your logic, moreover, seems to be that his speech will inspire the Kenyan “street” and that will in turn sway the government? Or did I misunderstand? (Yes, it’s a serious question, not a sneering one.) You suggest, rightly, that the Kenyan govt. is susceptible to unrest. But is that not true in Iran, where we were told that we should not give too much verbal encouragement to the anti-government protesters lest we be charged with meddling.
I see that some commenters claim that Iran and Kenya are not equivalent situations (well, duh), going on to say in some cases that we have a history of “meddling” in Iran. Well, I do not see that the West in general has a much better reputation for being ‘hands-off’ in Kenya and elsewhere in subSaharan Africa. So what is the difference?
Maybe the story of the Shah is better known in America than the complicated interventions in Africa, but the people who will be perceiving the message as “meddling” or not are not in America, they are in Africa and they have varied opinions on the West and America just as Iranians have opinions on us.
I am not saying the president is wrong to speak out about Africa’s problems. I am saying that there is a double standard here about cheering when he does that but complaining when he is called upon to do that in Iran as well.

“If you’re a Kenyan and you listened to the part of the speech where he spoke about democracy, and then he also spoke about opportunity, and when spoke about conflicts and peaceful resolution of disputes, you would be cringing at every opportunity,” said Makokha. “On each of those counts our administration is guilty.”

If it wasn’t for Obama’s outreach we wouldn’t even be seeing a Green revolution in Iran. Posted by: Mike C | Jul 12, 2009 2:23:17 AM
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This must be the Cairo speech that spurred the election demonstrations? I’m just guessing you would be that naive. Please fill me in if I’m off base.

Again, the Obama haters here don’t seem to understand the dynamics within Iran itself. If you want to destroy the reformist movement in Iran tomorrow, then by all means, Obama should meddle in Iran.
YOu guys are trying to make excuses to criticize Obama, when your ignoring the simple fact of geo-politics. Africa isn’t Central Asia. Persians aren’t Africans. There’s deep distrust toward America among both the conservative clerics and the Reformers within Iran. Even Republicans like Kissinger, Powell, Baker – veteran diplomats have approved of how Obama has handled the situation in Iran. We need to be cautious. Sometimes the best thing we can do to help the reformers, is just to shut up and not try to make this about us when it’s about Iranians deciding their own future

Timmy . ..
President Bush made almost no effort to come front and center to support the families and moderates of Iran.
President Obama made a very particular point of doing this. His first major television interview as President was done with this in mind. And he has made 2 more major speeches with this as the primarly focus.
Obama has made strong and direct overtures to the peoples of the Islamic world about the strength of democracy, their culture and against tyranny and extremism. For you to think this has no effect in not credible. Of course, it has had an effect and is part of what has gone on since in the Islamic world.
Did he ’cause’ the ‘Green’ revolution in Iran? There are many causes for major events in history. Did his overtures serve to help to encourage people in their actions for justice – of course they did.

I find it highly ironic that conservative here are complaining about Obama giving tough love to Kenya and africa?
Whaaaat? Isn’t that the message conservatives have been trying to push for years, that Africa needs to take more responsibility for itself, that it needs more good governance and less charity, etc, etc. You’d think conservatives would be applauding Obama’s speech rather than complaining about it.

Timmy . . . If you had kept reading, Posted by: danita | Jul 12, 2009 4:45:06 PM
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Your response has nothing to do with my comments admiring a member of the Kenyan press who actually stands for something. Maybe that’s why he’s respected. Unlike our press who get tingles…
But whatever…

Once again, this Lebanon thing has been going on for several years as reality hit home. The Obama speech helped reinforce the message already in place.
“A hypothesis: The old boss who Obama will end up imitating is not Bill Clinton–regardless of Hillary at Foggy Bottom–but George W. Bush.
“Looking back on Bush’s second term, however, we can see how almost all the neocon foreign policy directives evaporated–as did the swagger.
“And in Lebanon, as of 2004, the U.S. created a bodyguard of U.N. resolutions to protect the country from Syria, to bring to trial the assassins of Rafiq Hariri and to contain Hezbollah. Yet that didn’t prevent Damascus from systematically violating those resolutions and undermining Lebanese sovereignty; nor did it prevent Hezbollah from rearming, despite U.N. decisions, via Syrian territory.
“In none of these countries–Iran, Afghanistan and Lebanon–did the U.S. go it alone. The Bush administration tied itself down with ropes of international consent that left room for others to limit American actions. That squared little with the neocon yearning that no state or group of states should balance America in the pursuit of its national objectives.”

“Maybe you just didn’t SEE Bush’s efforts – or you don’t want to. You can’t pretend to know all that goes on behind the scenes in this complex world.”
What Bush Efforts? He undermined President Khatami, who was the most reformist minded president in Iran since the revolution. He lumped Iran into the Axis of Evil, eventhough Iran helped us in ousting the Taliban in Afghanistan after 911 – Colin Powell who was Secretary of state at the time said so himself and admitted that the US and Iran had begun low level contacts. It was under President Bush tenure that Ahmadinejad got elected, if anything Bush made the perfect foil for the hardline clerics and Ahmadinejad and undermined the reformers for years, the Reformers under Khatami actually went out of their way to publicly tell the Bush Administration to stop supporting them, because they were not helping them.

Yes, I’m aware of your alias “Moderate” whatever you like to call yourself. And your still missing the point. Different regions require different political geo-stratagies.
The fact that you have veteran republican foriegn policy experts such as Kissinger, Powell and Baker, have approved of how Obama has been handling international affiars so far pretty much nullifies all the conservative complaints here.

I’ll keep trying, Mike, but I’m starting to feel like I sometimes do when I have office hours and a student sitting across the desk from me who doesn’t get what I’m saying no matter how many different ways I say it. I’ll persevere because the moment when I stumble across a way to explain my point that the student actually understands and responds to is so very satisfying. It’s what keeps teachers teaching.
You summarize my response incorrectly. No, I am not objecting to the enthusiastic African response to President Obama. Far from it. When I spoke of the “worshipful attitude some display” I was speaking of commenters on this blog, such as Danita, not of Africans quotes in articles. Sorry I was not clearer. That sentence did rather run on.
To further clarify, I was defending the remarks of others, whom you had derided as conservatives complaining about President Obama’s tough stance on African leaders. I was arguing that those conservative commenters did not seem to me to have a problem with what Obama said, but perhaps with their view of his statements as hypocritical (in addition to their view– which I share– that many commenters were exaggerating the impact of his words).
Finally, I am very well aware that each country, each region, each group is unique and must be dealt with accordingly. That being said, it is helpful when a country projects an overall general attitude that is then adjusted to particular circumstances. I generally praised Obama’s approach to the Iran situation, as you may or may not recall. I was simply saying that I felt you had mischaracterized the arguments of those who were not enthusiastic about Obama’s Africa statement we’re talking about here.

“I find it highly ironic that conservative here are complaining about Obama giving tough love to Kenya and africa?
Whaaaat? Isn’t that the message conservatives have been trying to push for years, that Africa needs to take more responsibility for itself, that it needs more good governance and less charity, etc, etc. You’d think conservatives would be applauding Obama’s speech rather than complaining about it.”
Mike, I think it’s pretty clear it’s not the message that matters to those people, anything President Obama does has to be condemned. It’s part of the program.

Ryan_C, I did reread TCTimmy’s comments again and I stand by my interpretation. I guess it’s because I have read a lot of his commentary here and feel that I recognized the dry sarcasm of his comment– “I thought this was none of our business? Seems like selective meddling so far in the first five months.” It is a familiar tone that he adopts, and that I find amusing when he does.
I found this particular comment as similar to another he made on this same thread, when he wrote of President Obama, “His supporters make excuses for him when he meddles and when he does not meddle. Hope and Change depending on the circumstances I guess.” Sorry, but those two comments together seem to me to mean, “wow, you people are trippy. The president ‘doesn’t meddle’ and you cheer him, then somewhere else he wades right in to ‘meddle’ and you cheer him again. ”
Timmy, if I am misrepresenting the meaning of your comments, feel free to say so.

“But I guess we’re still going with an Obama speech did it all?”
Your quoting one article over and over again. Every expert middle eastern analyst who follow the region closely: Fareed Zakaria, Reza Aslan, Nicholas Burns, Afshin Molavim, so and so on. Have credited President Obama for changing the dynamics in the region with his outreach. It wasn’t just one speech, but the language he has used toward the Muslim world since his election. the Interview he did with Al Arabiya, his speech to the turkish Parliment, sending George Mitchell as his envoy for the peace process right away, his Happy nowruz message to the Iranian people. These have all had an effect in changing the tone of the relationship between the America and Muslim world.
Considering conservatives bloggers have constantly mock this outreach, your attitude doesn’t surprise me.

Since we’re quoting articles here’s one from Helen Cooper
” “Behind closed doors, most Iranian officials have long recognized that the ‘death to America’ culture of 1979 is bankrupt, and that Iran will never achieve its enormous potential as long as relations with the United States remain adversarial,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He and others argue that many Iranian pragmatists and moderates believe that their country in 2009 is facing a now-or-never moment.
“If Tehran’s hardliners are incapable of making nice with an American president named Barack Hussein Obama who preaches mutual respect and wishes them a happy Nowruz, it’s pretty obvious the problem is in Tehran, not Washington,” Mr. Sadjadpour said.
During the Bush years, Iran’s regime was able to coalesce support by uniting the country against a common enemy: President Bush, who called Iran a pillar of the “axis of evil” in a speech that alienated many of the very reformers whom the United States was trying to woo. For much of his administration, even as he strengthened Iran by toppling Iran’s nemesis Saddam Hussein, Mr. Bush struck a confrontational public line against the Iranian regime.
The result, according to many experts here and in Iran, was that Iranians, including reformers, swallowed their criticism of the hard-line regime and united against the common enemy. Iranians with reformist sympathies even began advising Americans to stop openly supporting them, lest that open them to attack as pawns of America.”