The latest US opinion poll indicates President Barack Obama’s popularity has slipped. For the first time it is below 60 percent. In individual US states where polls were carried out this month, it has dropped even further. In Virginia, a state he carried in November, his approval rating is down to 48 percent, just marginally above the 44 percent of Virginians who disapproved of him then. In Ohio, his popularity has dropped from 62 percent in May to 49 percent his month.
This is neither surprising nor unexpected. Honeymoons inevitably end. Euphoria wears off and complacency sets in. No leader of any nation can be popular all the time. Not that the drop is a big deal. Obama’s popularity is still such that if there were an election today he would win.
Nonetheless, amber lights must be flashing in the White House, all the more so because on certain key issues on which he campaigned strongly last year — health care in particular — confidence in his ability to deliver has dropped below 50 percent. The Obama administration does not want to get the unenviable reputation that the UK government led by former Prime Minister Tony Blair eventually had — all packaging but no content — certainly not so early in its term of office.
Beyond American shores, however, the rest of the world continues to have confidence in Obama’s promise of change, both in US policy and attitude. Nonetheless, there too, nagging suspicions are beginning to grow, especially now that it is painfully apparent that his policy on Guantanamo is a mess. The news that the report commissioned by Obama on what to do with terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay is to be delayed throws into serious doubt his promise that the prison will be closed by January 2010. The report will not be available till the last week of January at the earliest. What chance is there that it can be implemented within a week? None.
This is not the first miscalculation over Guantanamo. Two months ago, it was announced that military trials there were being revived after the president had very publicly ordered an end to them. This latest announcement makes it clear that the administration does not know what to do with the inmates it is convinced are terrorists but about whom it lacks sufficient evidence for conviction in court.
Those deemed low risk have already been either repatriated or sent for detention elsewhere. The administration is left with the hard cases and while it dare not set them free, every alternative route is blocked. US law prevents them being repatriated to countries where they might be tortured or killed. No other country is willing to take them and they cannot be held without trial on US soil.
Obama is in a quandary. The Bush administration would have closed Guantanamo if it could have done so — not that anyone believed in its sincerity or commitment. Obama promised he could find a way out and we believed him. We still do — but will hold him to that promise. If he fails then all the fine words in Prague, Cairo, Moscow and most recently Ghana, will be seen to be empty. The resulting resentment will be both bitter and destructive.
