Barack Obama and the promise too far?

I'm glad Barack Obama won the US presidential election. If he hadn't, it would have looked like a step backwards, and that would have been a bad thing in terms of global politics.

However, while I really hope that Obama can make America work, it is hard to see how he can make his promises work. It's a truism, but in opposition you can promise anything you like. Government tends to make things much more complicated.

Amongst the things Obama has promised is not to behave like Bush did on Kyoto, blocking it and refusing to sign up. But there is a good deal of misinformation on why Bush did what he did - he recognised that to implement Kyoto would cost an incredibly large amount of money and have a negligible impact on carbon emissions. It was just a very expensive gesture, and so Bush decided not to take part. This was seen as an abdication of his environmental responsibilities, but in many ways it was justified. Negotiating another treaty, presumably even more expensive, is probably politically necessary but will be risky in the longer term. And promising to create 5 million "green-collar" jobs is also a very costly commitment.

The biggest problem is what has been referred to by the BBC as Obama-nomics. That is to say, his attitude to economic policy, particularly in the current unstable climate. Not only is Obama intent on spending, sorry, investing lots of borrowed money to "stimulate" the economy, which is worrying given the already astronomical national debt he will inherit, but he has promised to protect American jobs and tell companies not to send jobs overseas. He also wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade agreement. This is bad news - an American president who opposes free trade and proposes a protectionist trade policy is not what the rest of the world, especially the developing world needs.

I still hope that Obama will prove to be a success - America needs a successful president. And if that successful president is half-black, it will improve America's image. But I am worried by some aspects of his manifesto. I hope I'm wrong.