And Allah is the best of planners’ – Koran, 8:301 On 20 January 2009, the newly elected Barack Obama stood before the Capitol to be sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States. Nearly two million people had gathered that freezing morning in Washington, DC, for one of the most widely viewed events in history. His campaign slogan had been ‘Yes we can’. After years of painful and divisive wars, and a recent domestic economic slump, Obama embodied an infectious, hopeful spirit that, just for a moment, transcended the familiar grudge-match wrestle of American political factions. His speech was uplifting. Borrowing the phrase from President Abraham Lincoln’s promise in his 1863 Gettysburg Address during the Civil War, Obama looked to a ‘new birth of freedom’. Earlier generations, said Obama, had faced down fascism and communism ‘not just with missiles and tanks’. They had persevered with their values: ‘They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.
