President Barack Obama has secured four more years in the White House. His re-election as the 45th President of the United States was expected as an incumbent, but beyond that generality every thing was in the balance.
Backed by a powerful conservative political mindset, big-business lobbies, and pro-Israel supporters, Republican candidate Mitt Romney gave him what a triumphant Obama in his victory speech described as a "hard fought campaign" in one of the most bitter and expensive races for the US presidency, but the six-year quest for the presidency of a successful investor, a skilled governor and an Olympic turnaround master came to a crushing end. Obama was essentially re-elected by the common Americans who found him to be on their side when the American economy was nose-diving. In his election they had 'the audacity of hope' to believe that whatever he had promised, he tried to deliver. Now that it is second term with their support he has promised them that "the best is yet to come". He returns to the White House "determined and inspired" although he will confront a daunting agenda, from an economy that is still far less robust than he had promised it would be, to the looming problems of debt and deficits.
With American troops back home and revival of the economy being his main task in the coming four years the United States is expected to be looking inward - as was the case after the First World War when it not only opted to stay out of the newly-formed League of Nations but also turned its back on global issues. It's his decision to wind up its military from Iraq and promise to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 that sat well with the American people. Maybe some thought his first election was courtesy a special situation when his predecessor George W Bush had committed the United States to certain un-achievable goals, or the average American voter was taken in by his mesmerising oratory. But his re-election sets the seal of authenticity on the fact that the United States is changing: it has elected the same black American for the second time with no mentionable pedigree. Now he would have a free hand to implement his own, so far unrealised, worldview. America will never be the same again.
If the re-elected Obama's observation that "A decade of war is ending" is what his administration learnt from the United States' failed military campaigns in foreign lands there is a cause to be celebrated by the people of the world. From the two wars, the first in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan, the only discernable outcome is more chaos and anarchy.
And things for Pakistan are expected to be even more challenging with huge power vacuum with contenders to power in Kabul returning with greater vigour and determination. We don't know if the United States would stop launching drone strikes into Pakistan; but we do hope it would even when both President Obama and his rival Romney said during their election campaigns that they will not. Maybe with the United States absent from the Afghan battlefield Pakistan would find it more practical to employ its influence with the Taliban who, in their Obama re-election message, have asked America that it must stop policing the world and leave Afghanistan as early as possible, and thus help kick-start the stalled peace process. Who comes to occupy the chair vacated by Hilary Clinton in the State Department Pakistan would be interested to know. If it is to be the author and mover of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, John Kerry, the Pakistanis' wish would have been met. Perhaps, given his prominent place in American political hierarchy, he would certainly help, introducing reasonableness to Pak-US bilateralism, which was Secretary Clinton's effort too but remained largely unrewarded where it clashed with that of the Pentagon and CIA. Last but not least. 'Iran needs a strategy of its interaction with its enemies,' and 'if it benefits the system, we will negotiate with the US even in the depth of hell', Iran's Mehr news agency is said to have quoted one of its most influential and highly respected political figures M. J. Larijani as saying hours after Obama's victory. Zalameh, who tweets live from the occupied city of Jerusalem, has said the following on the results of the US presidential elections: 'Obama's victory highlights a bad night for the Jewish right.' 'Four more years for Obama - three more months for Netanyahu?'.