“For the world has changed, and we must change with it”, proclaimed Barack Hussein Obama on a cold January morning, minutes after he took the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States. He made a pledge to the world; a great promise of internationalism that hasn’t been seen since John F. Kennedy. America is now lead by a president whose thought process can be traced to a vast diversity of international experiences. Obama has walked a path in life that few American presidents can boast, although that isn’t to say that people aren’t wary. During my recent trip to India, I was bombarded with many questions about the new President.

What is his commitment to the subcontinent? Will he try to stop the outsourcing of jobs? How would he deal with Pakistan? Recovering from the senseless attacks in Mumbai, most Indians that I speak to are entranced by Obama’s oratory and his star power, but quickly return to the cynical reality they hold so dear. With the area under control by Taliban expanding in the north-eastern regions of Pakistan, Talibanistan, India lies only a few hundred miles away. Many of my Indian friends professed to me their fear that Obama might be too soft on Pakistan. This is contradicted by his ever swift response in condemning the Mumbai attacks, his stern willingness to continue the war in Afghanistan by increasing the number of troops there, and to break away from his predecessors in condemning Pakistan’s inability to root out terrorist networks. He understands that the central front on the “War on Terror” is in Afghanistan, and is a test of endurance for the rest of the Muslim world, especially in the Middle East.

Military strategies aside, one gets a sense that President Obama understands that one of the strengths of networks like Al-Qaeda is their ability to propagate their ideological hatred. Even now, as thousands of madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan train young Muslims at a young age to fear the Jews and Hindus as enemies, Obama understands that a war strategy alone cannot assuage feelings of despair and hate that arise from years of economic and political instability. He knows that this is as much a war of ideology as it is a war of weapons. In the recent interview with Al-Arabiya, he spoke of his willingness to break away from the reckless Bush administration neologisms like “Islamofascism” and “American crusade.” At the same time, however, he refused to respect terrorist organizations and called their ideas bankrupt.

The most astute of his observations in that interview was how he saw no economic benefit for the people of the Arab world, from those that propagate these hateful ideologies. Having lived in Indonesia, one of the largest Muslim countries, and having witnessed conditions like abject poverty and lack of a decent infrastructure, the President can brag some institutional knowledge about conditions that lead people to embrace the extremist ideology. His heritage, which television pundits predicted would lead to his electoral demise and was often used by right wing zealots to undermine him, is now suddenly an asset for the simple reason that the Muslim world, in general, is less likely to be hostile to a man who once called the evening Islamic prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.” The terrorists are desperately trying to quell the Obamania that is sweeping across the world. They face an adversary who flaunts an aura of internationalism that has never been seen before in modern history, one that makes all Americans declare, “We are ready to lead again.”