I guess I don't think it odd at all. I see people behave in ways that hew to the structural imperatives around them -- all the time, including myself. I think it's most obvious to me in the realm of capitalist social relations in the workplace and business. It became really evident to me, when dealing with the petty bourg small business owners I had as clients. I don't think there is anything especially bad about operating according to institutional norms -- and I think a lot (not necessarily your) of the negative reactions to structural analysis is just u.s. individualism.
you say that obama is only acting this way now b/c of an election promise. so then, why did he make the promise? to get elected. who was the audience for that promist? surely not his base. it was, rather, those who want to root our the terr'ists: a wide swath of people who think, as my friend from India does, that it's important to act tough on the world stage, people who think that we must get revenge and capture osama. people who live in this very military region, who were terrified that the place would sink into a worsening economic depression without military contracts. (though, I've since read, though can't verify, that obama's big supporters were military contracting companies or something like that.)
as for promises, btw, they get ditched all the time. so why not this one? _why_ hew to this one? to me, obviously because obama doesn't think he can risk looking weak to those who think we mustn't look weak, or weak to those who think we must exact revenge, or too peacenik liberal to those who worry that scaling back military operations will harm them economically, etc. and he feels that losing their support would jeopardize his ability to get other things done. and of course there's no reason to think that obama just isn't the kind of guy who would, as a matter of course, simply hew to those ideas: that we must look weak, that we must exact revenge, that we must keep $ pumping the mil-industrial complex. he strikes me as quite sincere when he bellows on about going after terr'ists in afghanistan and getting tough with pakistan.
i don't even have time to get into india and the actors on the world stage to whom obama also speaks. but there is *that* as well.
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws