By Derek Tonkin

Though there would seem to be several reasons for Barack Obama's very clear mandate in the US presidential elections, most pundits agree that it was the "need for change" which primarily influenced American voters after eight years of an increasingly unpopular Administration under President Bush. International reactions to Obama's election have been very positive, even ecstatic. US prestige has had its best boost this century.

The basic principles of freedom and democracy which have been the cornerstone of US domestic policies  for a very long time are unlikely however to be exported with quite the missionary zeal which Bush's "neo-con" lieutenants like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney demonstrated over Iraq, probably the most damaging episode in US history since the Second World War, if not of all time. But those principles will continue to guide US foreign policy, which perceives the military regime in Burma as an anachronism in our 21st Century whose continuance is unacceptable.

US policies towards Burma are most unlikely to change in the short to medium term. Bush has invariably accepted the advice of the State Department on how to handle the military regime. Accordingly any change in the main thrust of US sanctions policy is most unlikely, though in the wake of the devastation of Cyclone Nargis and the developing humanitarian crisis in many other parts of Burma, notably the current famine in Chin State, we may expect a greater willingness by the new Administration to focus on humanitarian and even development assistance, including a more reasonable attitude to support by UN agencies which currently operate under serious congressional restrictions. ... more ...

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