Communist Party USA leader Sam Webb, has hailed the election of Party “friend” Barack Obama, as the “dawn of a new era.”From Russia:
The Party is cock-a-hoop over Obama’s victory, seeing it as both a repudiation of the conservative agenda and an opportunity to move the United States further towards socialism.
From the People’s World:[More...]
Congratulations!” Medvedev tweeted in English to Barack Obama, who emerged victorious in a tight race against Mitt Romney.Also a reminder to bronco bamma, love Putin:
“Obama is an understandable and predictable partner,” Medvedev told reporters on Wednesday. “Obama has been a quite successful president.”
Meanwhile, the Russian premier expressed his relief that Republican candidate Mitt Romney, known for his anti-Russia outbursts on the campaign trail, had lost the election.[More...]
Russia expects Barack Obama to show more flexibility in a dispute over U.S. missile defense plans in Europe following his re-election as president, a top official said Thursday…
In March, Obama, unaware that he was speaking on an open microphone, told Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia’s president, that he would have more flexibility on the issue after the November election.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin appeared to be trying to remind Obama of his promise when he said Thursday that Moscow hopes that the U.S. president will listen to Russia’s concerns about the U.S.-led NATO missile defense for Europe.[More..]
The U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Smith, told the Arabic news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat that American foreign policy will now change after President Barack Obama’s reelection. Smith made the comments at an election night party at his residence.Ambassador Smith “stressed the desire of President Obama to resolve a number of foreign issues, most notably restoring negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, responding more strongly to Iran, and working with allies to end the Syrian crisis, in addition to providing support for the new governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, and assisting the current Yemeni President,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported.
The ambassador appears not to have elaborated further.
Obama was famously overheard promising the Russian leadership more flexibility after he was reelected by the American people. It now seems Obama believes he will have more flexibility in the Middle East, too.
A tradition of American presidential elections is that the winner gets congratulatory phone messages from many foreign heads of state. It’s pro forma diplomacy, but it can be revealing in who the president-elect (or, in this case, the sitting president about to serve his second term) chooses to call back, or not call back.
The White House just put out a press release of which world leaders got return calls from President Obama, all of which it says he made personally and this morning. The list is a little bit surprising: Obama called four Middle Eastern heads of state, three European, two Latin American (but not Mexico!), plus Canada, India and Australia. Conspicuously absent: the East Asian states to which the Obama administration has been pivoting.
It is interesting that Obama called Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, the democratically elected leader and Muslim Brotherhood ally who is also a source of some wariness in U.S. security circles. That would seem to suggest a degree of at least interest in high-level engagement with the new Egypt.