TOGETHER WITH BARACK

US President-Elect Barack Obama can be said to have already formed his administration. It is with this team that he will have to keep his campaign promises, tackle the financial crisis and prepare and perhaps usher in a "new dawn of American leadership" - an aim that he declared straight after his stunning electoral triumph. Analysis of the make-up of the new White House administration gives some pointers as to what the policy of the world's most powerful state will be over the next four years. In any case, there is no doubt that on the international stage it will be the policy of a superpower that has vital interests almost everywhere. 

Bush's legacy

Tough, bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the USA's declining image, an increase in anti-American feeling everywhere, a colossal foreign debt and the worldwide financial crisis are the legacy left to Democrat Barack Obama by Republican President George Bush, who has just a few weeks left in the White House. The unpleasant situation in which America now finds itself is noted in a report recently published by the USA's National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025. Experts think that the economic and political influence of the USA will continue to fall in the next 20 years, while the current financial crisis on Wall Street is just the first stage in a change in the global economic order. Informing the US president-elect about factors that will characterize "the next 20 years of transition to a new system" which are "fraught with risks", Thomas Fingar, chairman of the intelligence council, said that "harmful consequences can be avoided", as "it is not beyond the mind of human beings, or political systems, (or) in some cases (the) working of market mechanisms to address and alleviate if not solve these problems".

Barack Obama himself clearly agrees with this. Realizing the full complexity of the current situation - it even led him to cancel a firework display, originally planned in the event of his election victory - the president-elect decided to hit the ground running and announced his new team straightaway. Almost two months before the inauguration of the new US leader, the main players in the new American administration are known.

Veteran politicians

A cursory glance at Barack Obama's new administration shows that the Democratic president-elect, who has the support of most of the American people thanks to his promises of reform, is planning to carry out those promises with the help of veteran politicians, many of whom had top jobs under previous presidents - Democrat Bill Clinton and even  Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. 

The second person in Obama's team, 66-year-old Joseph Biden, led the US Senate's Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995. Gregory Craig, who will be White House counsel, was senior adviser on defence affairs, foreign policy and national security under Reagan and Clinton's legal adviser. Lisa Brown, the future head of the president's administration, was the vice-president's counsel from 1999 to 2001. Barack Obama decided to appoint as Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, head of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve who held junior posts in the Treasury under Bill Clinton. The then Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, will be head of the National Economic Council. 

The decision to keep Robert Gates as defence secretary was a notable event in the formation of Barack Obama's foreign policy team. This is out of considerations of continuity for a state that is waging two long drawn-out wars far from its own borders. Gates is also a supporter of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in the near future and this brings him closer to Obama, who defended this position throughout the election campaign.

The secretary for homeland security will be Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano who was previously Arizona's attorney general. The director of national intelligence will be the former commander of US forces in the Pacific, retired Admiral Dennis Blair, who studied at Oxford with Bill Clinton.

However, the main news about the president's team is the appointment as secretary of state of Barack Obama's former main rival in the Democratic camp, Hillary Clinton. Rumours that the former first lady would become secretary of state emerged after her private meeting with Barack Obama. But Hillary Clinton's appointment was finally decided after the sides overcame sensitivities connected to Bill Clinton's financial activity, as he's now head of a charitable fund that works in more than 20 countries. 

It is clear that Hillary Clinton herself thought long and hard over Obama's offer. It was a difficult choice not just because she will have to decide the toughest international problems in her new post, but by accepting the president-elect's offer to join his team she is agreeing to leave the Senate and giving up on chances to take the longed for presidential post in four years' time. Political scientists added fuel to the flames by saying in the media that Barack Obama was trying to create a political union with Hillary Clinton in order to prevent her from running against him in 2012. But Mrs Clinton has made her choice, which with her well known independence could create a fair few problems for Obama in conducting foreign policy.

Burden of moral authority

One thing is certain - the arrival of Barack Obama and his team in the White House promises to bring tangible, if not cardinal, change in US foreign policy. The future president talked in his campaign speeches about the need to smooth the sharp edges of American policy, for example, in the Middle East and around Iran. In his first television interview as US president-elect, which he gave to the CBS channel, Barack Obama talked about the main policy areas of the new American administration. The occupant of the White House gave assurances that consultations would soon begin with a joint committee of chiefs of staff and foreign policy advisers to draw up a specific plan for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the reinforcement of the American contingent in Afghanistan. He also promised again to destroy completely the Al- Qaeda international terrorist network, "to bring Osama Bin Laden to his knees", describing the capture of the terrorist as the most important step in the fight against international extremism.

At the same time, Barack Obama confirmed the promise he made during his election campaign to close the Guantanamo prison. "I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo and I will follow through on that," he said. "I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world."

In this way Barack Obama is expressing his intention to take action that might reduce international tension to a certain extent, although it is still too early to talk about d?tente. Unravelling the Middle East knot will take cardinal decisions that signify a substantial change in American policy, in particular towards the Arab world and the its own alliance with Israel.

It is unlikely that America under Obama will go for a radical reform of the global political and economic order, largely based on Washington's financial interests. However, most countries, including the USA's European allies, have clearly realized the need for reform in international relations.

Will Barack Obama set out to tackle the long-standing, negative factors that brought about the world economic crisis? It looks as though the president-elect genuinely wants "a new dawn of American leadership" to be loyally accepted by the rest of humanity and realizes that their favour can be won only by establishing fair rules for global cohabitation. The question is, can he rise above the prejudices of the American political elite, turn its aspirations in a direction that does not contradict the interests and desires of the larger part of humanity and that tackles the challenges of the 21st century? This is the key question intriguing the world on the eve of the presidential term of the first black leader in US history.

It can be assumed quite specifically that Barack Obama will prefer a peaceful solution to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme. But here much will depend on the position of the Islamic Republic itself, which up to now has refused to fulfil the resolutions of the UN Security Council that call on Iran to stop enriching uranium.

Obama's policy towards Russia will also be significant for the fate of the world. The Democratic administration will probably criticize the Kremlin more strongly than happened under Bush for "departing from democracy". At the same time Obama might try to smooth over sharp disagreements when deciding on basing elements of the US anti-missile defence system in Eastern Europe and generally expand cooperation with Moscow on global strategic security. 

Barack Obama's expected policy in the South Caucasus is a separate question. This is a region which has turned into a real bone of contention in US-Russian dialogue over the last few months.

A gamble with far-reaching consequences

The five-day August war between Russia and Georgia led to a severe deterioration in American-Russian relations. It looks as though the stand-off between the two great powers will be the main content of South Caucasian geopolitics in the next few years. The regional situation is developing in such a way that even a moderate administration in the USA will not change things substantially. At stake is the future of a corridor, control over which will tip the geopolitical balance in favour of one great power or the other across the whole Eurasian area. 

Barack Obama will try not so much to return Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia's fold (Russia's position basically makes this impossible), but make Russia give up attempts to decide Georgia's own fate. The new American leader will certainly try to have Georgia accepted into NATO as soon as possible, but this has first to be agreed with the European Union for whom a guarantee is important that Tbilisi will not take future action that could push the Old World into an open conflict with Russia. In any case, Obama will try to confirm Western influence in Georgia once and for all and this will be seen as compensation for Russia's recent success in the South Caucasus.

It is extremely difficult to predict how the stand-off between the USA and Russia in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict zone will end. The consolidation of Moscow's position has led to it stepping up its mediatory mission on a Karabakh settlement. Washington is of course doing its best to take the initiative. But its capacities in this regard are noticeably limited today.

Over the last 10 years Azerbaijan has been the USA's most energetic ally in the South Caucasus, offering solid support in anti-terrorist work and in carrying out Caspian oil and gas projects aimed at assisting the West's energy security. However, for its part Washington has done nothing substantial to take account of our country's interests in the Karabakh issue.

Today Azerbaijan is the lead country in the region and able to stand up as it should for its political and economic interests on the international stage. Baku will undisputedly continue its multi-vector foreign policy, but in conversation with such giants as Washington and Moscow will demand real observation of its interests in return for proposals to expand cooperation with them. Much will depend on what policy Obama conducts towards Armenia which is occupying part of Azerbaijan's territory.

It is entirely possible that Barack Obama, who included recognition of the notorious "Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire" in his election manifesto, will place his stake in South Caucasian policy on Armenia. 

In such an event, the USA will in time come to realize their mistake (like Russia today). If, in order to tempt Armenia into the Euro-Atlantic camp, Obama's administration takes action infringing the interests of Turkey and Azerbaijan, this will inevitably lead to a deterioration in relations between Washington on the one hand and Baku and Ankara on the other. It's not in the USA's interests to quarrel with Turkey, especially in view of the Middle East and Iraq. In addition, Washington's support for Armenia could force a tentative, strategic rapprochement between Turkey and Russia. Losing Azerbaijan would mean an end to US interests in the whole region. So the newly elected president's strategists have something to chew on.

However, we must not forget that plenty of promises gratifying Armenian ears could be heard during previous US presidential campaigns. However, the politician who became head of the trans-Atlantic superpower nevertheless preferred to act on his country's geopolitical interests and not the yapping of the Armenian lobby.

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On the eve of his presidency, Barack Obama stood before the American people as a state leader aware of his responsibility for the fate of his people. Time will tell whether he can justify this faith. Now one thing is clear - and of course Barack Obama himself understands this - the next few years will not be easy for the USA or for the rest of the world.