We have read with great interest the very unrealistic expectations of some Caribbean commentators from an Obama administration. It might be useful to give a few reminders.

President Obama will assume office in the throes of the most serious crisis since the Second World War, largely due to the self-inflicted wounds of the last eight years. While foreign policy issues are important, domestic problems are certainly going to be the priority of a new administration elected with a mandate to change.

The financial system has to be stabilised, the mortgage/housing fallout has to be turned around to salvage home ownership and employment-creation to replace temporary and permanent job losses.

Next he has to declare a "victory" and extricate the US from the quagmire of Iraq. The resources freed up can be more productively employed to modernise infrastructure.
Reducing US dependency on foreign health care and urban issues where minorities proliferate are in urgent need of attention.

Foreign policy is not likely to be top of President Obama's agenda, although he will not be able to avoid entanglement in the traditional conundrums such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The power of the president of the US is enormous, but there are many constraints: the ambiguous role of Congress; the inertia of the bureaucracy; advice of the Pentagon and CIA; the overstretched military deployment; the opinionated media and an insulated, uninformed public.

Only the unavoidable foreign policy issues will supersede the domestic agenda, and the Caribbean, including Cuba, is not on that shortlist.

The Caribbean, in a combination of misguided self-importance and delusional optimism, assumes that it deserves to be on the foreign policy agenda of the US, more so than ever because the president-elect is a Black man.

Undoubtedly, as the son of an African father, Mr Obama must have greater empathy for developing countries and people of African descent. That alone will not put the region where it feels it should be among the priorities of a new president.
Nor will location as the so-called "fourth border" or drug trafficking, which pales in significance compared to that of Colombia. Nor will the number of illegal migrants cause alarm, given the flood of Mexicans.

With no entitlement, no Colin Powell on the inside, no export market of consequence and no strategic importance, the Caribbean must be realistic. The only significance of the region is the fact that Trinidad supplies 40 per cent of the natural gas imports of the US. Turning this into leverage requires a sophisticated and concerted campaign.

The Caribbean will have to operate as a region to have the critical mass to attract the attention of the White House and it should devise a carefully laid out strategy to get on the US foreign policy agenda. The strategy has to be operational as soon as possible and its implementation carefully calibrated.

Leading the charge cannot be left to the current crop of inexperienced Washington-based Caribbean diplomats. The campaign has to identify and target the key foreign policy advisors and the secretary of state-designate as early as possible.

Subjects of interest and points of access have to be utilised. Every friend and all contacts have to be mobilised to get the message into the inner sanctum and raise the profile of the region.

Every country or region has to earn its place in the game.

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