To briefly give a preview of what Obama supporters (and the US in general) should expect it is somewhat humorous, interesting, and I believe highly pertinent to note that Iran — one of the countries which openly endorsed Barak Obama — is already at odds with him, and trying in an amateurish way to pressure him by throwing his own campaign rhetoric back his way. During the campaign Obama spoke a lot about “change” without any specific definitions. It is a shallow enough notion in the realm of geopolitics for any single American President to talk a lot about change without explaining himself, but it was enough when coupled with ethnic concerns and a grand distaste for the Republicans on the Left to get the man elected.
“Change” simply is something which cannot happen very quickly within a system as deep and complex as the American one. I noted before in an introductory article to a series I am writing about future American geopolitical realities that reality will likely bite the Democratic majority in the ass, and as a clear majority in Congress and with the White House under their control they will have no scapegoats to blame the current state of the world on. Nobody, of course, accept the other 200-odd countries which comprise the planet upon which we live.
The key problem of perception here is that the Left still chooses to observe the world as a merry place where the only evil is America itself and that no other nations or organizations (not even Islamists) have competing interests or any malicious plans for anyone else. All problems stem from America. This is their view and a hardcore Leftist will conduct immensely complex intellectual gymnastics to force the world to conform to that view in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary. The major components of this view were also adopted by the Right from the end of the Cold War until around 1998 when the combined lack of a NATO or EU enemy (the USSR had collapsed) and the strain of a financial crisis made the EU seem to pull apart for a bit. 9/11 forced the rest of the Right squarely into a more realistic world view and even snapped many in the Left out of their daydream of a harmonious global human experience.
The important thing to note here is that what Obama meant by “change” is that he wants to be elected, that he is little bit black (which is a change from a white President) and he wants to conduct foreign policy through a Democrat-controlled Congress (which is a change from a Republican-controlled one). What Iran chose to hear when they heard him say “change” was that America would suddenly just lay down and allow Iran all the diabolical means (such as nuclear weapons) it desires to destabilize Iraq, destroy Saudi Arabia as a competitor and state, annihilate Israel and re-establish the Persian Empire.
It should be noted here also that Iran can have all the enriched uranium it wants and still be years away from actually weaponizing them. Nuclear weapons are delicate and intricate. It is a long way from having some fissinable material and having a functional, high-yield bomb that can be launched and delivered with any success, confidence, reliability and accuracy through modern air- and missile-defense networks. Obama’s resistance to Iran’s continued research, however, is something that Iran views as against what he said with the word “change”. They will continue to attempt to pressure him even before he reaches office in any way possible.
He will continue to find himself trapped in the foreign policy game with limited options to persue outside of the policies Bush has already laid out. Fortunately, he has shown the wisdom to remain cautious and largely silent in response to this attack by Iran and let his far more seasoned staff handle things for him.