COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

If you were wondering why the US establishment was so much more chill about Trump becoming president this term than they were the first time around, you’re watching the reason now.

The powers that be were assured that he’d carry out longstanding imperial agendas like kidnapping Nicolás Maduro, bombing Iran and overseeing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and they trusted him to carry out those plans.

The MAGA narrative that the establishment hates Trump because he’s fighting the Deep State has never been true; there were certain factions within the US imperial power structure which disliked Trump, but that was only because he was not a proven commodity like Hillary Clinton and they didn’t trust him to be a reliable steward of the empire.

Trump proved that he could be trusted with his advancement of longtime swamp monster agendas throughout his first term, and he plainly did enough during his time out of office to assure his fellow empire managers that he would do even more if re-elected.

The empire needs its skillful orators and apologists like Obama, but it also needs its iron-fisted overt tyrants like Trump.

It needs good cop presidents to manufacture global consensus and expand US soft power, and it also needs bad cop presidents to inflict the hard power abuses the good cops can’t get away with. Both are essential components to the operation of the imperial machine.

Marco Rubio:

If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned — at least a little bit. pic.twitter.com/6ZBmwykfH1

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 3, 2026

Cuba for example has been a socialist island nation off the coast of the United States for generations, because the US hasn’t been able topple its government by its usual means. All the standard CIA assassination ops, proxy warfare and economic blockades were unsuccessful, and there’s been no national or international support for sending US boots on the ground to regime change a small country that poses no military threat.

But a last-term bad cop president like Trump has options at his disposal that would be off the table for good cop presidents.

US empire managers are discussing this openly.

“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Maduro’s capture.

“Cuba is ready to fall,” Trump told the press on Sunday next to a delighted Lindsey Graham. “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall.”

This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened. pic.twitter.com/SXvI868d4Z

— Department of State (@StateDept) January 5, 2026

“You just wait for Cuba,” Graham added. “Cuba is a Communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns, they preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We’re gonna wake up one day, I hope in ’26, in our backyard we’re gonna have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narcoterrorist dictators killing Americans.

“Donald Trump will have done something that’s eluded America since the fifties: deal with the Communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida,” Graham said on Fox News. “I can’t wait till that day comes. To our Cuban friends in Florida and throughout America, the liberation of your homeland is close.”

The Beltway swamp was saying this well before Trump’s Venezuela assault. In October, Senator Rick Scott told 60 Minutes that if Maduro was removed “it’ll be the end of Cuba,” saying “America is gonna take care of the Southern Hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy.”

Trump’s blatant smash-and-grab violation of international law in Venezuela wouldn’t have worked for a president who’s trying to put a nice guy face on the US empire, but for a wealthy reality TV star who’s comfortable playing the WWE heel, it’s opened up potential power grabs that have been eluding the imperialists for decades.

JUST IN – Lindsey Graham and Trump pose together with a “Make Iran Great Again” hat, signed by Trump. pic.twitter.com/656ctZp52M

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 5, 2026

When the news broke that Trump had attacked Caracas I was working on an article about his warmongering with Iran which I had to abandon to focus on the new development. The president had announced on Truth Social that if any of the people protesting in Iran are killed, “the United States of America will come to their rescue,” adding, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Prior to that Trump had confirmed to the press that the US would attack Iran if it tried to rebuild its missile program, saying in a joint news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because if they are, we’re going have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”

To be clear, the president is not talking about attacking Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear facilities or construct a nuclear weapon. He’s talking about Iran’s conventional ballistic missile programme. The United States is saying that Iran simply is not allowed to defend itself in any way, shape or form, and that if it tries to rebuild its ability to do so it will be attacked again.

So they’re clearly just making up excuses to bomb Iran and waiting for something to stick.

Senator Graham recently tweeted a photo of himself grinning with the president, who was holding a hat which said “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”. You can pretty much determine how warlike the US empire is from day to day by looking at the expression on Lindsey Graham’s face, and lately he’s been looking positively ecstatic.

Trump used to slam warmongers like Graham, building a huge part of his presidential 2016 campaign around contrasting himself with their disastrous foreign policy platforms.

Now that he doesn’t have a re-election to posture for they’re best friends, with Graham proclaiming that “Trump is my favourite president” because “we’re killing all the right people and lowering your taxes”.

January 2029 is still a long way off, and we’re seeing every indication that Trump is going to be making Lindsey Graham smile for years to come.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

The Trump administration has issued a new executive order opening up vast swathes of protected ocean to commercial exploitation, including areas within the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.

It allows commercial fishing in areas long considered off-limits due to their ecological significance — despite overwhelming scientific consensus that marine sanctuaries are essential for rebuilding fish stocks and maintaining ocean health.

These actions threaten some of the most sensitive and pristine marine ecosystems in the world.

Condeming the announcement, Greenpeace USA project lead on ocean sanctuaries Arlo Hemphill said: “Opening the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing puts one of the most pristine ocean ecosystems on the planet at risk.

“Almost 90 percent of global marine fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished. The few places in the world ocean set aside as large, fully protected ocean sanctuaries serve as ‘fish banks’, allowing fish populations to recover, while protecting the habitats in which they thrive.

“President Bush and President Obama had the foresight to protect the natural resources of the Pacific for future generations, and Greenpeace USA condemns the actions of President Trump today to reverse that progress.”

President Trump signs executive order on Pacific fisheries     Video: Hawai’i News Now

Slashed jobs at NOAA
A second executive order calls for deregulation of America’s fisheries under the guise of boosting seafood production.

Greenpeace USA oceans campaign director John Hocevar said: “If President Trump wants to increase US fisheries production and stabilise seafood markets, deregulation will have the opposite effect.

“Meanwhile, the Trump administration has already slashed jobs at NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and is threatening to dismantle the agency responsible for providing the science that makes management of US fisheries possible.”

“Trump’s executive order on fishing could set the world back by decades, undoing all the progress that has been made to end overfishing and rebuild fish stocks and America’s fisheries.

“While there is far too little attention to bycatch and habitat destruction, NOAA’s record of fisheries management has made the US a world leader.

“Trump seems ready to throw that out the window with all the care of a toddler tossing his toys out of the crib.”

‘Slap in face to science’
Hawai’i News Now reports that a delegation from American Samoa, where the economy is dependent on fishing, had been lobbying the president for the change and joined him in the Oval Office for the signing.

Environmental groups are alarmed.

“Trump right here is giving a gift to the industrial fishing fleets. It’s a slap in the face to science,” said Maxx Phillips, an attorney for the Centre for Biological Diversity.

“To the ocean, to the generations of Pacific Islanders who fought long and hard to protect these sacred waters.”

Republished from Greenpeace USA with additional reporting by Hawai’i News Now.

The executive orders, announced on April 17, 2025, are detailed here:

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

She made it clear in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, again at her televised debate with Donald Trump a few weeks later, and in all her interviews since.

Vice-President Kamala Harris, if or when elected the 47th United States president, will continue the centre-right policies of her recent predecessors, especially her current boss, President Joe Biden.

This likely means that efforts to address income equality and poverty, to abandon policies that beget violence overseas, and to confront the latticework of discrimination that affects Americans of colour and Black women especially, will be limited at best.

If Harris wins today’s election, her being a Black and South Asian woman in the most powerful office in the world will not mean much to marginalised people anywhere, because she will wield that power in the same racist, sexist and Islamophobic ways as previous presidents.

“I’m not the president of Black America. I’m the president of the United States of America,” President Barack Obama had said on several occasions during his presidency when asked about doing more for Black Americans while in office. As a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris is essentially doing the same.

And as it was the case with Obama’s presidency, this is not good news for Black Americans, or any other marginalised community.

Take the issue of housing.

Blanket housing grant
Harris’s proposed $25,000 grant to help Americans buy homes for the first time is a blanket grant, one that in a housing market historically tilted towards white Americans, will invariably discriminate against Black folks and other people of colour.

Harris’s campaign promise does not even discern between “first-time buyers” whose parents and siblings already own homes, and true “first-generation” buyers who are more likely not white, and do not have any generational wealth.

It seems Harris wants to appear committed to helping “all Americans”, even if it means her policies would primarily help (mostly white) Americans already living middle-class lives. Any real chance for those among the working class and the working poor to have access to the three million homes Harris has promised is between slim and none.

Harris’s pledges about reproductive rights are equally non-specific and thus less than reassuring to those who already face discrimination and erasure.

She says, if elected president, she would “codify Roe v Wade”. Every Democratic president since Jimmy Carter has made such a promise and yet failed to keep it.

Even if Congress were to pass such a law, the far right would challenge this law in court. Even if the federal courts decided to upload such a law, the Supreme Court decisions that followed between 1973 and 2022 gave states the right to restrict abortion based on fetus viability, meaning that most restrictions already in place in many states would remain.

And with half the states in the US either banning abortion entirely or severely restricting it, codification of Roe — if it ever actually materialises — would at best reset the US to the precarity around reproductive rights that has existed since 1973.

Less acccess to resources
Even if Harris miraculously manages to keep her promise, American women of colour, and women living in poverty, will still have less access to contraceptives, to abortions, and to prenatal and neonatal care, because all Roe ever did was to make such care “legal”.

The law never made it affordable, and certainly never made it so that all women had equal access to services in every state in the union.

Given that she is poised to become America’s first woman/woman of colour/Black woman president, Harris’s vague and wide-net promises on reproductive rights, which would do little to help any women, but especially marginalised women, are damning.

Sure, it is good that Harris talks about Black girls and women like the late Amber Nicole Thurman who have been denied reproductive rights in states like Georgia, with deadly results. But her words mean nothing without a clear action plan.

Where Harris failed the most of all, however, is tackling violence — overwhelmingly targeting marginalised, sidelined, silenced and criminalised folks — in the US and overseas.

During a live and televised interview with billionaire Oprah Winfrey in September, Harris expanded on the revelation she made during her earlier debate with Trump that she is a gun owner.

“If somebody breaks into my house they’re getting shot,” Harris said with a smile. “I probably should not have said that,” she swiftly added. “My staff will deal with that later.”

Grabbing attention of gun-owners
The vice-president seemed confident that her remark would eventually be seen by pro-gun control democrats as a necessary attempt at grabbing the attention of gun-owning, centre-right voters, who could still be dissuaded from voting for Trump.

Nonetheless, her casual statement about the use of lethal force revealed much more than her desire to secure the votes of “sensible”, old-school right wingers. It illuminated the blitheness with which Harris takes the issue of the US as a violent nation and culture.

It is hard to believe Harris as president would be an advocate for “common sense” measures seeking “assault weapons bans, universal background checks, red flag laws” when she talks so casually about shooting people.

Her decision to treat gun violence as yet another issue for calculated politicking is alarming, especially when Black folk — including Black women — face death by guns at disproportionate rates, particularly at the hands of police officers and white vigilantes.

Despite Trump’s disgusting claims, Harris is a Black woman. Many Americans assume she would do more to protect them than other presidents. However, her dismissive attitude towards gun violence shows that President Harris — regardless of her racial background — would not offer any more security and safety to marginalised communities, including Black women, than her predecessors.

The assumption that as a part-Black, part-South Asian president, Harris would curtail American violence that maims and kills Black, brown and Asian bodies all over the world also appears to be baseless.

In repeatedly saying that she “will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world”, Harris has made clear that she has every intention to continue with the lethal, racist, imperialistic policies of her Democratic and Republican predecessors, without reflection, recalibration or an ounce of remorse.

Carnage in Gaza
Just look at the carnage in Gaza she has overseen as vice-president.

Despite saying multiple times that she and Biden “have been working around the clock” for a ceasefire in Gaza, the truth is that Biden and Harris have not secured a ceasefire simply because they do not want one.

Harris as president will be just as fine with Black, brown, and Asian lives not mattering in the calculations of her future administration’s foreign policy, as she has been as vice-president and US senator.

Anybody voting for Harris in this election — including yours truly — should be honest about why. Sure, there is excitement around having a woman — a biracial, Black and South Asian woman at that — as American president for the first time in history. This excitement, combined with her promise of “we’re not going back” in reference to Trump’s presidency, and many pledges to protect what’s left of US democracy,  provide many Americans with enough reason to support the Harris-Walz ticket.

Yet, some seem to be supporting Kamala Harris under the impression that as a Black and South Asian woman, she would value the lives of people who look like her, and once elected, support marginalised people much better than her predecessors.

This is a delusion.

Just like Obama once did, Harris wants to be president of the United States of America. She has no intention of being the President of “Black America” or the marginalised. She made this clear, over and again, throughout her campaign, and through her work as vice-president to Joe Biden.

There is a long list of reasons to vote for Harris in this election, but the assumption that her presidency would be supportive of the rights and struggles of the marginalised, simply because of her identity, should not be on that list.

Donald Earl Collins, professorial lecturer at the American University in Washington, DC, is the author of Fear of a “Black” America: Multiculturalism and the African American Experience (2004). This article was first published by Al Jazeera.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

One year since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to San Diego to unveil the AUKUS deal the news came that the first of three second-hand Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines supposed to arrive in 2032 may not happen.

Former coalition prime minister Scott Morrison announced AUKUS in September 2021 and Albanese continued to champion the pact between the US, Britain and Australia.

Phase one involves Australia acquiring eight nuclear-powered submarines as tensions in the Indo-Pacific are growing.

Concerns about the submarines ever materialising are not new, despite the US passing its National Defence Bill 2024 which facilitates the transfer of the nuclear-powered warships.

However, the Pentagon’s 2025 fiscal year budget only set aside funding to build one Virginia submarine. This affects the AUKUS deal as the US had promised to lift production from around 1.3 submarines a year to 2.3 to meet all requirements.

Australia’s acquisition of the first of three second-hand SSNs were to bridge the submarine gap, as talk about a US-led war on China continues.

US Democratic congressperson Joe Courtney told The Sydney Morning Herald on March 12 the US was struggling with its own shipbuilding capacity, meaning promises to Australia were being deprioritised.

Production downturn
Courtney said that the downturn in production “will remove one more attack submarine from a fleet that is already 17 submarines below the navy’s long-stated requirement of 66”.

The US needs to produce 18 more submarines by 2032 to be able to pass one on to Australia.

After passing laws permitting the transfer of nuclear technology, the deal is running a year at least behind schedule.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge said on X that “When the US passed the law to set up AUKUS they put in kill switches, one of which allowed the US to decide not [to] transfer the submarines if doing so would ‘degrade the US undersea capabilities’”.

Pat Conroy, Labor’s Defence Industry Minister, retorted that the government was confident the submarines would appear.

The White House seems unfazed; it would have been aware of the problems for some time.

Meanwhile the USS Annapolis, a US nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) has docked in Boorloo/Perth.

AUKUS still under way
Regardless of whether Australia acquires any nuclear-powered vessels, the rest of the AUKUS deal, including interoperability with the US, is already underway.

Andrew Hastie, Liberal Party spokesperson, confirmed that construction at HMAS Stirling will start next year for “Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West)”, the permanent US-British nuclear-powered submarine base in WA, which is due to be completed in 2027.

SRF-West includes 700 US army personnel and their families being stationed in WA. If the second-hand nuclear submarines do not materialise, the US submarines will be on hand.

SRF-West may also serve as an alternative to the five British-designed AUKUS SSNs, slated to be built in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide over coming decades.

Australia respects the Pentagon’s warhead ambiguity policy, meaning that any US military equipment stationed here could be carrying nuclear weapons: we will never know.

Shoebridge said on March 13 he was entering a hearing to decide where the AUKUS powers can dump their nuclear waste. Local waste dumps are being considered, as the US and Britain do not have permanent radioactive waste dumps.

The waste to be dumped is said to have a low-level radioactivity. However, as former Senator Rex Patrick pointed out, SSNs produce high-level radioactive waste at the end of their shelf lives that will need to be stored somewhere, underground, forever.

‘Radioactive waste management’
The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023, tabled last November, allows for the AUKUS SSNs to be constructed and also provides for “a radioactive waste management facility”.

The Australian public is spending US$3 billion on helping the US submarine industrial base expand capacity. An initial US$2 billion will be spent next year, followed by $100 million annually from 2026 through to 2033.

The Pentagon has budgeted US$4 billion for its submarine industry next year, with an extra US$11 billion over the following five years.

The removal of the Virginia subs, and even the AUKUS submarines from the agreement, would be in keeping with the terms of the 2014 Force Posture Agreement, signed off by then prime minister Tony Abbott.

As part of the Barack Obama administration’s 2011 “pivot to Asia”, the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement allows for 2500 Marines to be stationed in the Northern Territory.

It sets up increasing interoperability between both countries’ air forces and allows the US unimpeded access to dozens of “agreed-to facilities and areas”.

These agreed bases remain classified.

US takes full control
However, as the recent US overhaul of RAAF Base Tindall in the NT reveals, when the US decides to do that it takes full control.

Tindall has been upgraded to allow for six US B-52 bombers that may be carrying nuclear warheads.

US laws that facilitate the transfer of Virginia-class submarines also make clear that as Australia is now classified as a US domestic military source this allows the US privileged access to critical minerals, such as lithium.

Paul Gregoire writes for Sydney Criminal Lawyers where a version of this article was first published. The article has also been published at Green Left magazine and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The dilemma facing whistleblowers, journalists and publishers who risk it all to help the world’s people to become more informed. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange finds himself crushed between these two counterbalances — the asserted right of powerful nations to operate in secret, and the right of the press to reveal what goes on in the public’s name.

Article sponsored by NewzEngine.com

This week, on October 27-28, Julian Assange appeared before a United Kingdom court defending himself against an appeal that, if successful, would see him extradited to the United States to face a raft of indictments that ultimately could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.

The US lawyers argued largely that human rights reasons that caused the UK courts to reject extradition to the US could be mitigated. That Julian Assange’s case could be heard in Australia and if found guilty serve out jail time in his home country rather than the US.

Assange’s defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC argued: “In short there is a large and cogent body of extraordinary and unprecedented evidence… that the CIA has declared Mr Assange as a ‘hostile’ ‘enemy’ of the USA, one which poses ‘very real threats to our country’, and seeks to ‘revenge’ him with significant harm.” The lawyers said the United States assurances were “meaningless”.

“It is perfectly reasonable to find it oppressive to extradite a mentally disordered person because his extradition is likely to result in his death.” Fitzgerald QC added that a court must have the power to “protect people from extradition to a foreign state where we have no control over what will be done to them”.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, sitting with Lord Justice Holroyde, said: “You’ve given us much to think about and we will take our time to make our decision.”

The judges then reserved their decision. It is expected Assange’s fate will be revealed within weeks.

In this Special Report, we examine why the US wants this man. And we detail the space between whistleblowers, journalists and publishers who risk it all to help the world’s people to become more informed. Julian Assange finds himself crushed between these two counterbalances: the asserted right of powerful nations to operate in secret, and the right of the press to reveal what goes on in the public’s name.

Should Julian Assange be extradited from the UK to face indictments in the United States? Or should he be set free and offered a safe haven in a country such as Russia or even New Zealand?

It was always going to come down to this: Is Julian Assange captured by the assumptions people have of him, or a blurred line between a public’s right and a state’s wrong.

‘Manhunt Timeline’
The United States effort to capture or kill Assange goes back to 2010. But his inclusion in what’s called the “Manhunt Timeline” soon lost its sting when, under US President Barack Obama, it was believed if charges against Assange were brought before the US courts for his publishing activity, then he would be found not guilty due to the US First Amendment “freedom of the press” constitutional protections.

But everything changed with a new president, and a massive leak to Wikileaks of CIA secret information on 7 March 2017.

That leak of what was called Vault 7 information “detailed hacking tools the US government employs to break into users’ computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.”

CBS News reported at the time: “The documents describe clandestine methods for bypassing or defeating encryption, antivirus tools and other protective security features intended to keep the private information of citizens and corporations safe from prying eyes.” (CBS News)

The Vault 7 leak (and earlier leaks going back to 2010) also revealed information that the US security apparatus argued compromised the safety of its personnel around the world. This aspect is vital to the US Justice Department’s case against Julian Assange.

Among a complex web of indictments and superseding indictments, the US alleges Wikileaks and Assange conspired with whistleblowers (significant among them Chelsea Manning) in what it argues was a conspiracy against the US interest. It also argues that Wikileaks and Julian Assange failed to satisfactorily redact leaked documents before dissemination or publication of the same — including details that put US personnel and agents at risk.

Prominent New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager had knowledge of Wikileaks’ processes, and, going back to 2010, spent time working with Wikileaks on redacting documents.

Hager testified at The Old Bailey in London in September 2020 before a hearing of the Assange case and, according to The Australian, said: “My main memory was people working hour after hour in total silence, very concentrated on their work and I was very impressed with efforts that they were taking (to redact names).” Hager added that he himself had redacted “a few hundred” Australian and New Zealand names.

On cross examination, The Australian reported: “Hager referred in his testimony to the global impact of the publication of the collateral murder video, which shows civilians being gunned down in Iraq from an Apache helicopter, which led to changes in US military policies. He claimed it had a ‘similar galvanising impact as the video of the death of George Floyd’.” (The Australian)

But it was the Vault 7 leak that triggered the then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo to act. After that leak, Pompeo set out to destroy Wikileaks and its publisher Julian Assange.

Pompeo vs Assange

Mike Pompeo was appointed as CIA director in January 2017. The Vault 7 leak occurred on his watch. It was personal, and in April 2017 he defined Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service”.

That definition triggered a shift of approach. The US intelligence apparatus and its Justice Department counterpart then re-asserted that Wikileaks and its publisher and editor-in-chief Julian Assange were enemies of the United States.

Pompeo’s definition paved the way for a more targeted operation against Assange. But, for the time being, the US public modus operandi was to ensure extradition proceedings, through numerous hearings and appeals, were dragged out while stacking an increasing number of complex indictments on the charge-sheet.

The definitions ensured the UK’s corrections system regarded Assange as a high risk and dangerous prisoner hostile to the UK’s special-relationship partner, the USA.

The tactic is well used by governments and states around the world. But in this case it appears beyond cold and calculated. As the US applied a figurative legal-ligature around the neck of Julian Assange it knew his circumstances — that he was imprisoned, isolated, in solitary confinement, on a suicide watch, handled by prison guards under a repetitive high security risk protocol. It knew the psychological impact was compounding, causing legal observers, his lawyers, his supporters — even the judge overseeing the extradition proceedings — to fear that the wall before Assange of ongoing litigation, compounded with the potential for extradition and possible life imprisonment, would overwhelm him.

Let’s detail reality here. In real terms, being on suicide-watch as a high security risk prisoner, meant every time Assange left his cell for any reason (including when meeting his lawyers), on return he would be stripped, cavity searched (which includes being forced to squat while his rectum is digitally searched, and a mouth and throat search).

This was a similar security search protocol that was used against Ahmed Zaoui while he was held at New Zealand’s Paremoremo maximum security prison. At that time Zaoui was regarded as a security risk to New Zealand. He was of course later found to be a man of peace and given his liberty. Sometimes things are not what they initially seem.

In the UK, for Assange the monotonous grind of total solitude and indignity ticked on. In the US in March 2018, Mike Pompeo was set to be promoted. He received the then US President Donald Trump’s nomination to replace Rex Tillerson as US Secretary of State. The US Senate confirmed Pompeo’s nomination and he was sworn in on 26 April 2018.

Pompeo quickly became one of Trump’s most trusted and powerful White House insiders. As Secretary of State, Pompeo toured the globe’s foreign affairs circuit asserting the Trump Administration’s position on governments throughout the world. As such, Pompeo was regarded as one of the world’s most powerful men.

Looking back, Pompeo wasn’t the first high ranking US official to regard Assange as an enemy of the state. The Edward Snowden leaks of 2014 revealed that the US government had in 2010 added Assange to its “Manhunting Timeline” — which is an annual list of individuals with a “capture or kill” designation.

This designation came during the early stages of the Obama Administration years. However, US investigations into Wikileaks then suggested Assange had not acted in a way that excluded him from being defined as a journalist and therefore it was likely Assange, if tried under US law, would be provided protections under the First Amendment constitutional clauses.

But when Pompeo advanced toward prominence, Obama was gone. And under Donald Trump, the US appeared to ignore such constitutional rocks in the road. Trump had his own beef with the US Fourth Estate, and the conditions for respecting First Amendment privilege had deteriorated.

Did Trump stop the CIA kidnap or kill plan?

Perhaps we understand the Trump Administration’s mindset more now in the wake of the 6 January 2021 insurrection where supporters of Trump stormed the US House of Representatives seeking to overturn the election result and reinstate Trump as President. Throughout much of that destructive day, Trump reportedly remained at the White House while the mob erected a gallows and sought out Vice-President Mike Pence. The mob’s reason? Because Pence had begun the process of certifying electoral college writs, an essential step toward swearing in as President the newly elected Joe Biden.

It may reasonably be argued that Trump and some members of his Administration displayed a disregard for elements of the US Constitution. But, it must also be said, that Trump had at times displayed an empathy for Julian Assange’s situation.

This week The Hill reported on Trump’s view of Assange through an interview with the former president’s national security advisor, Keith Kellogg (who is also a retired US Army Lieutenant General.

Kellogg told The Hill: “He (Trump) looked at him (Assange) as someone who had been treated unfairly. And he kind of related him to himself … He said there’s an unfairness there and I want to address that.”

Kellogg added that Trump saw similarities between Assange and himself in that Trump would not back down in the face of media attacks: “I think he kind of saw that with Julian in the same way, like ‘ok, this guy’s not backing down’.” (The Hill)

Kellogg’s account seems incongruous to what we now know. On 26 September 2021, a Yahoo News media investigation delivered a bombshell. It revealed how the CIA had planned to kidnap or kill Assange.

But more on the detail of that below. First, let’s look at a confusing picture of how former President Trump’s words do not meet his Administration’s actions.

We know that “someone” in the Trump Administration put a halt to the CIA’s kill or capture plan. We just do not know whether Trump commanded its cessation, or whether Pompeo or Trump’s attorney-general/s operated outside the former president’s orbit. But we do know the US Justice Department pursued Assange through an intensifying relentless application of indictments of increasing severity and complexity. If it is an MO, then it is reasonable to suggest the legal wall of indictments and the CIA’s plan to kill or capture were potentially one of the same.

Which segues back to the details of the US case against Assange.

The US Justice Department vs Assange
In March 2019, The Washington Post reported that US Whistleblower Chelsea Manning had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the investigation of Julian Assange. The Post correctly suggested that the US Justice Department appeared interested in pursuing Wikileaks before a statute of limitations ran out.

Washington Post reported: “Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the Justice Department likely indicted Assange last year to stay within the 10-year statute of limitations on unlawful possession or publication of national defense information, and is now working to add charges.” (Washington Post)

Then, On April 11 2019, after high-level bilateral meetings between the US and Ecuador, the Ecuadorian Government revoked Assange’s asylum. The UK’s Metropolitan Police were invited into Ecuador’s London embassy and Assange was arrested. 

Once Assange was in custody (pending the outcome of a court ruling of what eventually became a 50 week sentence for breaching bail) the United States made its move. On 11 April 2019 (the same day Ecuador evicted him) US prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Assange referring back to information that Wikileaks had released in stages from 18 February 2010 onwards. (US Justice Department)

This video, known as the collateral murder video, was among the Wikileaks release. The video is of US military personnel killing what they initially thought were Iraqi insurgents. It also displays an apparent indifference by US personnel when, shortly after, it was revealed by ground troops that there were civilians killed, including women and children (and also what were later found to be journalists). The leaked video exposed the United States to potential allegations of war crimes.

The video, and the accompanying dossier of US classified documents, shocked the world and revealed what had been covered up by US secrecy. The information that was leaked by then US Military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, and published by Wikileaks and provided to a select group of the world’s most prominent media, was arguably a tipping point for public sentiment regarding the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was, in the <2010 decade, on a par with revelations of abuses of detainees by US personnel at Abu Ghraib prison.

In a release to the US press, the Justice Department’s office of international affairs stated: “According to court documents unsealed today, the charge relates to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”

It connected to how Wikileaks had acquired documents from US whistleblower Chelsea Manning. The leak contained 750,000 documents defined as “classified, or unclassified but sensitive” military and diplomatic documents. The documents included video. The sum of the leaks detailed what were regarded generally as atrocities committed by American armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The leaked material was also published by The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. In May 2010, Manning was identified then charged with espionage and sentenced to 35 years in a US military prison. Later, in January 2017, just three days before leaving office, US President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence.

On 23 May 2019, the US Justice Department issued a statement confirming Assange had been further charged in an 18-count superseding indictment that alleged violation of the Espionage Act 1917. It specifically alleged (among other charges) that Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning in late 2009 and that: “… Assange and WikiLeaks actively solicited United States classified information, including by publishing a list of ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ that sought, among other things, classified documents. Manning responded to Assange’s solicitations by using access granted to her as an intelligence analyst to search for United States classified documents, and provided to Assange and WikiLeaks databases containing approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 US Department of State cables.” (US Justice Department)

The superseding indictment added: “Many of these documents were classified at the Secret level.”

It’s also important to note, a superseding indictment, in this context carries heavy weight. It isn’t merely a charge lodged by an investigative wing of government, but issued by a US grand jury.

The May 2019 superseding indictments ignited a stern rebuttal from powerful media institutions.

The Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as press freedom organisations, criticised the government’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act, characterising it as an attack on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press. On 4 January 2021, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the US request to extradite him and stated that doing so would be “oppressive” given his mental health. On 6 January 2021, Assange was denied bail, pending an appeal by the United States. (Wikipedia.org)

In normal times an assault on the US First Amendment through a clever legal move would destroy a presidency. But these were not normal times.

Ultimately, the powerful US Fourth Estate fraternity failed to ward off the Trump Administration’s men. Trump himself was by this time already hurling attacks on the credibility and purpose of the United States media. And, he tapped in to a constituency that distrusted what it heard from journalists.

Then on 24 June 2020, the US Justice Department delivered more charges against Assange, this time with an additional superseding indictment that included allegations he conspired with “Anonymous” affiliated hackers: “In 2010, Assange gained unauthorised access to a government computer system of a NATO country. In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack.” (US Justice Department)

As the Trump presidency ran out of steam, and arguably created its own attacks on the US national interest, Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden won the election and became the 46th President of the United States.

Why Assange was imprisoned in the UK

Julian Assange was tried before the UK courts and convicted for breaching the Bail Act. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. He was expected to have been released after five to six months, but due to the US extradition proceedings and appeal he was held indefinitely.

The initial bail conditions (of which Assange was found to have breached) were set resulting from an alleged sexual violence allegation made in Sweden in 2010. Assange had denied the allegations, and feared the case was designed to relocate him to Sweden and then onto the US via a legal extradition manoeuvre — hence this is why he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange was never actually charged by Swedish authorities nor their UK counterparts, but rather the initial bail breach related to a move to extradite him to Sweden.

Also, as a side-note: in November 2019, Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into allegations of sexual violence crime. The BBC reported that Swedish authorities dropped the case as it had: “Weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.”

Meanwhile, Assange was imprisoned at London’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he was incarcerated indefinitely pending the outcome of US extradition proceedings.

There is an irony that in January 2021, the week Assange was denied bail pending the outcome of the US-lodged appeal, back in the US a mob loyal to Trump attempted a coup d’etat against the US constitution.

Out with Trump, in with Biden
On 20 January 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as US President. Around the world a palpable mood of change was anticipated. It’s fair to say those involved or observing the Assange case were hopeful the United States under Joe Biden’s presidency would withdraw the initial charges and superseding indictments.

But, that was not to be.

Then on 26 September 2021, a Yahoo News media investigation delivered a bombshell. It revealed how the CIA had planned to kidnap or kill Assange.

The investigation’s timeline revealed a plan was developed in 2017 during Pompeo’s tenure at the CIA and considered numerous scenarios where Assange could be liquidated while he resided at the Ecuadorian Embassy. The investigation was backed by “more than 30 US official sources”. (Yahoo News)

The media investigation stated: “… the CIA was enraged by WikiLeaks’ publication in 2017 of thousands of documents detailing the agency’s hacking and covert surveillance techniques, known as the Vault 7 leak.” 

It added that Pompeo: “was determined to take revenge on Assange after the (Vault 7) leak.”

Apparently, the CIA believed Russian agents were planning to remove Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy and “smuggle” him to Russia: “Among the possible scenarios to prevent a getaway were engaging in a gun battle with Russian agents on the streets of London and ramming the car that Assange would be smuggled in.”

It appears a wise-head in the Trump Administration ordered a halt to the CIA plan due to legal concerns. Officials cited in the investigation suggested there were: “Concerns that a kidnapping would derail US attempts to prosecute Assange.”

It would also be reasonable to suggest that a prosecution would be difficult should Assange be dead.

As the US extradition appeal loomed, Julian Assange’s US-based lawyer Barry Pollack reportedly said: “My hope and expectation is that the UK courts will consider this information (the CIA plot) and it will further bolster its decision not to extradite to the US.”

Assange’s partner Stella Morris, on the eve of the US extradition appeal proceedings also said reports of the CIA’s plan “was a game-changer” in his fight against extradition from Britain to the United States. (Reuters)

Greg Barnes, special council and Australian human rights lawyer and advocate spoke this week to a New Zealand panel (A4A via the internet): “Now we know that the CIA intended effectively to murder Assange. For an Australian citizen to be put in that position by Australia’s number one ally is intolerable. And I think in the minds of most Australians the view is that the Australian Government ought to intervene in this particular case and ensure the safety of one of its citizens.”

Barnes added that the Assange case is now a human rights case: “I can tell you that the rigours of the Anglo-American prison complex which we have here in Australia and in which Julian is facing at Belmarsh (prison in London) are such that very few people survive that system without having severe mental and physical pain and suffering for the rest of their lives.

“This should not be happening to an Australian citizen, whose only crime, and I put quotes around the word crime, has been to reveal the war crimes of the United States and its allies.” (A4A YouTube)

The respected journalist advocacy organisation Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF), this week called for the US case against Assange to be closed and for Assange to be “immediately released”. (Reporters Without Borders)

RSF added: “During the two-day hearing, the US government will argue against the 4 January decision issued by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, ruling against Assange’s extradition to the US on mental health grounds. The US will be permitted to argue on five specific grounds, following the High Court’s decision to widen the scope of the appeal during the 11 August preliminary hearing. An immediate decision is not expected at the conclusion of the 27-28 October hearing, but will likely follow in writing several weeks later.”

RSF concluded: “If Assange is extradited to the US, he could face up to 175 years in prison on the 18 counts outlined in the superseding indictment… (If convicted) Assange would be the first publisher pursued under the US Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defence.”

RSF recently joined a coalition of 25 press freedom, civil liberties and international human rights organisations in calling again on the US Department of Justice to drop the charges against Assange.

Beyond Belmarsh Prison – human rights and asylum options

There remains a logical and considered question as to what will become of Julian Assange should his legal team successfully defend moves of extradition to the United States.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has found relative safety living inside the Russian Federation. But beyond Russia there are few safe-haven options available to Julian Assange.

This week a group called A4A (Aotearoa for Assange) coordinated an online panel of human rights advocates and whistleblowers to consider whether New Zealand should become involved.

It was a serious move. The panel included the United States’ highly respected Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. (Pentagon Papers, Wikipedia)

Daniel Ellsberg told the panel: “A trial under (the Espionage Act) cannot be a fair trial as there is ‘no appeal to motives, impact or purposes’.”

“A trial under the Espionage Act could not permit that person to tell the jury why they did what they did,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “It is shameful that President Biden has gone in the footsteps of President Trump. It is shameful for President Biden to have continued that appeal.

“To allow this to go ahead is to put a target on the back of every journalist in the world who might consider doing real investigative journalism of what we call the National Defence or National Security…”

It’s a valid point for those that work within the sphere of Fourth Estate public interest journalism. While in New Zealand, there are rudimentary whistleblower protections, they fail to protect or ensure anonymity. For journalists, if a judge orders a journalist to reveal her or his source(s), then the journalist must consider breaching the code of ethics required from the profession, or acting in contempt of court.

In the latter case, a judge can, in New Zealand, order the journalist to be held in custody for contempt, and it should be pointed out there is no time limit of incarceration. Defamation law is equally as draconian. In New Zealand (unlike the United States) a journalist accused of defamation shoulders the burden of proof — to prove a defamation was not committed.

The chill factor (a reference to pressures that cause journalists to abandon deep and meaningful reportage) is real.

Daniel Ellsberg knows what this means. And he fears, that if the US wins its appeal against Assange, it will erode the Fourth Estate from reporting on what goes on behind the scenes with governments: “… there will be more Vietnams, more Iraqs, more acts of aggression… A great deal rides (on this case) on the possibility of freedom.”

His comments connect remarkably with those of former New Zealand prime minister, and former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark.

In a previous online discussion, Clark was asked what she thought of Julian Assange’s case. In a considered reply she said: “You do wonder when the hatchet can be buried with Assange, and not buried in his head by the way.

“I do think that information that’s been disclosed by whistleblowers down the ages has been very important in broader publics getting to know what is really going on behind the scenes.

“And, should people pay this kind of price for that? I don’t think so. I felt that Chelsea Manning for example was really unduly repressed.

“The real issue is: the activities they were exposing and not the actions of their exposure,” Helen Clark said.

The US appeals case this week is not litigating the merits of its indictments. But rather it has attempted to mitigate the reasons Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied extradition in January 2021. The US legal team has suggested to the UK court that Assange’s human rights issues could be minimised should he face trial in his native Australia, that if found guilty that he could serve out his sentence there. It gave, however, no assurances that this would occur.

On the eve of the appeal, and appearing before the A4A online panel was Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver.

Dr Driver is an academic with the University of Reading (UK) and a legal observer very familiar with the Assange case. The degree of human rights abuses against Assange disturb her.

Dr Driver detailed what she had observed: “Julian Assange was served the second superseding indictment on the first day of trial. When he took his papers with him, back to the prison, his privileged papers were taken from him. He was handcuffed, cavity searched, stripped naked on a daily basis. [This is] a highly intelligent human being who we already know is on the Autism Spectrum. To be put through the indignities and arbitrariness of the process which is consistently working in a way that doesn’t stand with normal process…

“For somebody who has gone through all of this for a number of years, it has its psychological impact. But it is not just psychological, the physical effects of torture are pretty severe including the internal damage that he has.”

She added: “We expect the high court will recognise the kind of serious gross breaches of Julian’s basic rights and the inability for him to have a fair trial in the UK or in the US and that this case will be dismissed immediately.”

On the merits of whistleblowers, Dr Driver said: “You can see through the Vault 7 leaks how much the state knows about what is going on in your daily lives… As an observer in court I see how he (Julian Assange) is being tortured on a day to day basis. His privileged conversations with his lawyers were spied on.”

Dr Driver said the Swedish allegations were never backed up with charges. In fact the allegations were dropped due to time and insufficient evidence.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, concluded after his investigation of the Swedish allegations that Assange was never given the opportunity to put his side of the case.

Dr Driver said: “In any situation where there is violence against women, and I say this as a survivor myself, people are meant to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And, this new trend which is accusation-equal-to-guilt is a bad trend because it undermines the cause of women, and it prevents women from getting justice — just as it happened in Sweden because indeed nobody will ever know what happened between Julian and those women other than the two parties there.”

A crime left undefended or a case of weaponising violence against women?
Dr Deepa Driver said: “If cases like this are not brought to court, then neither the women nor those accused like Julian get justice. And it is Lisa Longstaff at Women Against Rape who has said time and again, ‘this is the state weaponising women in order to achieve its own ends and hide its own war crimes’. And this is what Britain and America have done in weaponising the case in Sweden, because Sweden was always about extraditing Julian (Assange) to America.”

She suggested Assange’s situation was a human rights case where he was the victim. The view has validity.

The United Nations’ special rapporteur Nils Melzer issued a statement on 5 January 2021 welcoming the UK judge’s ruling that blocked his extradition to the United States (a ruling that this week was under appeal).

Melzer went on: “This ruling confirms my own assessment that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to conditions of detention, which are widely recognised to amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Melzer said the judgement set an “alarming precedent effectively denying investigative journalists the protection of press freedom and paving the way for their prosecution under charges of espionage”.

“I am gravely concerned that the judgement confirms the entire, very dangerous rationale underlying the US indictment, which effectively amounts to criminalizing national security journalism,” Melzer said.

In summary Melzer said: “The judgement fails to recognise that Mr Assange’s deplorable state of health is the direct consequence of a decade of deliberate and systematic violation of his most fundamental human rights by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador.”

He added: “The failure of the judgment to denounce and redress the persecution and torture of Mr Assange, leaves fully intact the intended intimidating effect on journalists and whistleblowers worldwide who may be tempted to publish secret evidence for war crimes, corruption and other government misconduct”. (UNCHR)

A call for New Zealand to provide asylum
This week, US whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg applauded New Zealand’s independent global identity. And, he called for New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to provide an asylum solution should Julian Assange be released.

Dr Ellsberg’s call was supported by Matt Robson, a former cabinet minister in Helen Clark’s Labour-Alliance government and whom currently practices immigration law in Auckland.

Matt Robson said: “We can support this brave publisher and journalist who has committed the same crime, in inverted commas, as Daniel Ellsberg — to tell the truth as a good honest journalist should do. Our letter to our (New Zealand) government is a plea to do the right thing. To say directly on the line that is available, to (US) President Biden, to free Julian Assange.”

Australian-based lawyer Greg Barnes said: “New Zealand plays a prominent and important role in the Asia-Pacific region and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the New Zealand government could offer Julian Assange what Australia appears incapable of doing, and that is safety for himself and his family.”

So why New Zealand?

Daniel Ellsberg said: “There are many countries that would have been supportive of Assange, none of whom wanted to get into trouble with the United States of America. Of all the countries in the world I think you can pick out New Zealand that has dared to do that in the past. I remember the issue over whether they would allow American warships into New Zealand harbours.

“Julian Assange should not be on trial,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “And given he is indicted, he should not be extradited. It is extremely important, especially to journalists.

“To allow this to go ahead is to put a target, a bull’s eye, on the back of every journalist in the world who might consider doing real investigative journalism of what we call national security. It’s to assure every journalist that he or she as well as your sources can be put in prison, kidnapped if necessary to the US.

“That is going to chill (journalists) to a degree that there will be more Vietnams, more Iraqs, more acts of aggression such as we have just seen. The world cannot afford that. A great deal rides on the policy matters on the possibility of freedom,” so said Daniel Ellsberg — the US whistleblower who blew the lid off atrocities that were committed in Vietnam.

Conclusion
Of course there are always complications, such as executive government leaders involving themselves in judicial matters. But sometimes a leader does the right thing, simply because it is the right thing to do — as Helen Clark did early on in her prime ministership when she extended an olive branch to people fleeing tyranny onboard a ship called the Tampa, which was under-threat of sinking off the coast of Australia. Helen Clark brought the Tampa refugees home to a new place called Aotearoa New Zealand, and we have been better off as a nation because of it.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

OPINION: By John Minto

Former US President Barack Obama won office decisively on the basis of a fervent campaign driven by his supporters believing he would bring real change.

Obama’s two terms did nothing of the sort.

He was elected US President in 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis. It was a deeper capitalist crisis than most and widespread disenchantment, frustration and anger threatened to force politicians to regulate capitalism and end neoliberalism.

READ MORE: Obama’s celebrity star power

The reign of the rich was under intense pressure. Billionaire wealth and power rich were endangered.

Around the globe ordinary people were demanding governments not use state funds to bailout the banks at the heart of the crisis. Anger at obscene wealth alongside poverty and growing inequality was finding public expression through the likes of the Occupy movement.

-Partners-

What was to be done?

It was Barack Obama who rode to the rescue – a fresh-faced political orator talking of the imperative for change and promising a transformation in US politics.

“Yes, We Can” said Obama.

Hope and vision
Ordinary people flocked to his message of hope and a vision for a better world.

But behind it all his campaign was heavily backed by big business donations – more than even for the Republicans. Their donations were given on the basis of assurances Obama would calm things down, bail out capitalism and continue the exploitation of low and middle-income families for the benefit of the rich.

Obama bailed out the banks, increased weapons production and delivered 10 times more drone strikes than his predecessor George Bush.

I’m not a student of American political history, but I haven’t come across another US President where there has been a greater gulf between promise and delivery. Obama was a huge disappointment to ordinary people but a champion of the rich.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that his visit to New Zealand this week is in the company of the rich and the very rich. They owe him.

It’s disappointing all the same to see the childlike fawning of politicians and media representatives to this visit.

In New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s case it’s not so surprising.

“Yes we can” and “Let’s do this” have a similar ring.

John Minto is an independent Christchurch media commentator and activist.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Professor Thomas Clark

The grace. The elegance. The deftness of touch. The quick intelligence. The soaring rhetoric. The unlimited aspirations. The hope of a better life for all.

Though Barack Obama’s legacy is rather lesser than some might have hoped for when he was inaugurated president of the United States in 2009, in him the world has lost the leadership of a gentle soul, a humble man of immense quality and kindness.

And now, these qualities will be replaced with bitter self-interest and vulgarity.

Even without the contrast of Donald Trump, Obama’s dignified bearing, even his very existence, was an inspiration. He and his wife Michelle were an unrivalled illustration of dignity in public office – and more than that, he has clearly left a profound mark on his country.

In his valedictory address in Chicago, Obama was as always breathtakingly optimistic, both about what has been achieved and in his estimation of America’s potential to achieve greater things yet:

If I’d told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history; if I’d told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, take out the mastermind of 9/11; if I’d told you that we would win marriage equality and secure the right to health insurance for another 20m of our fellow citizens – if I’d told you all that, you might have said our sights were set a little too high.

To watch the incoming administration crumble this legacy into rubble will be unbearably painful. But it also pays to ask why this hugely gifted politician didn’t accomplish more – and why he won’t leave a more durable legacy.

Back from the brink
The task Obama faced after his inauguration was monumental. The 2008 financial crisis had threatened to engulf the US in a recession as deep and lasting as the Great Depression in the 1930s; the new president inherited an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent, which by October 2009 had risen to 10 percent.

The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act delivered an $831 billion stimulus package, pumping money into infrastructure, education, health, energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits and welfare provisions.

According to the Council of Economic Advisers, the US economy added jobs for 74 consecutive months and reached its pre-recession average by mid-2015, falling to 4.6 percent by November 2016. Non-farm employment exceeded its pre-recession peak by 6.7m, with the automobile industry adding 700,000 jobs.

This was a stunning turnaround, but millions of casualties of the financial crisis have still not recovered. There remains a lingering sense that the financial institutions that caused the crisis were never made to pay for it.

Then there was the battle to achieve affordable universal health care, Obama’s signal social reform. This was a titanic fight that left him in an intractable conflict with the Republican Party in Congress for the whole of his two terms in office.

The Affordable Care Act, now widely known as “Obamacare”, requires all Americans to purchase a private health plan, secure an exemption, or pay a tax penalty. Those who could not afford health care qualified for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or assistance in the form of tax credits.

Health care was ultimately extended to all citizens. But the system’s troubled implementation and the political guerrilla war waged against it before and since its introduction demonstrates the just how unprepared US for any comprehensive form of social provision.

Bad examples
Obama drew a line under the US’s military adventurism in the Middle East, finally withdrawing US forces from Iraq in December 2011; he also declared an end to the war in Afghanistan in November 2014. But he was unable to head off the horrors of the Syrian civil war, first setting out a “red line” that Bashar al-Assad’s regime could not cross without consequences and then declining to act when it did.

While he avoided putting American “boots on the ground” on a grand scale, he presided over actions by special forces, including the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. He also continued to rain bombs on Muslim countries, and his apparent penchant for drone strikes has arguably set a dangerous precedent.

Obama also maintained a quiet but determined commitment to protect the environment, working hard to replace fossil fuels with renewables. And while the world’s developing economies rebuffed a global climate agreement at Copenhagen in 2009, they ultimately committed to a rapid reduction in emissions at the 2015 Paris summit.

The sense of optimism was capped by Obama’s emmissions reduction agreement with President Xi of China.

But once again, by using his executive powers to circumvent an intransigent Republican congress, Obama laid this and other key achievements open to destruction by future presidents – and first in line is Donald Trump.

The fate of the US economy now lies in the hands of a man who claims to be a serial entrepreneur, but who could just as well be described as a serial bankrupt. The new Republican-controlled Congress is already preparing to dismantle Obamacare, but needs to ensure millions of Americans who now have access to health care don’t suddenly lose it.

In foreign affairs and military intervention, Obama’s successor promises to be highly unpredictable. He might be most dangerous of all when it comes to climate change and environmental protection, although international support for serious global measures to curb emissions has probably never been higher.

System flaws
Obama also failed to achieve some of his fundamental objectives, but many of these failures reflect fundamental flaws in the American system that are beyond any one president’s power to repair.

Above all, his hopes for a new era in race relations were cruelly dashed. Black Americans were still being lethally victimised as his presidency drew to a close, with police brutality perhaps a more incendiary issue than ever. Throughout it all, he remained dignified as ever; his plaintive rendition of Amazing Grace at a church in Charleston, South Carolina where eight worshippers and a pastor were brutally killed marked the end of his effort not to be portrayed as a black president.

Tragically, his efforts to constrain gun violence in the US failed to overcome the onslaught of political opposition to responsible control, and a constant patter of gunfire punctuated his presidency.

At Sandy Hook elementary school, 20 young children and six adults perished at the hands of a single shooter. The event brought Obama to tears: “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad. And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.”

By his own admission, Obama failed to overcome the intense partisanship of American politics and society. The disfigurement of US democracy continues, undermining the possibility of stable government. Tens of millions of Americans don’t participate in the democratic process at all, and the political agenda is still disproportionately shaped by a wealthy corporate elite.

We can only hope that while the traumatic 2016 election may have left America’s more idealistic political forces chastened, they are not broken.

Thomas Clark is professor of business at the University of Sydney Technology. This article is published from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.