WASHINGTON: Proposing that "enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war," US President Barack Obama opened his second term in the White House with a promise of greater American engagement and less confrontation with the world that can "more durably lift suspicion and fear."

In a rousing inaugural address following his re-election and swearing-in for four more years at the helm of the world's most influential country, the US President offered plenty of hints that America would now focus on the challenging internal social, political, and economic dynamics rather than be sucked into solving the world's problems.

America, he said, will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe; and it will renew those institutions that extend its capacity to manage crisis abroad, "for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation." But there was a sense that he was drawing down on the age of active and aggressive American interventionism where US interests are not involved, although there was the usual promise of promoting democracy across the world "because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom."

"We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully — not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear," Obama said, praising the sacrifices of the citizens and armed forces while maintaining "we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well."

In a speech whose theme centered on faith in America's future, Obama drew the portrait of a country whose journey was yet incomplete and said "America's possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention."

America, he said, is "made for this moment, and we will seize it."

The US President touched on a range of hot button topics from gay rights and gun violence to immigration and the role of government. America's journey, he said in one striking reference to immigration, is not complete "until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country."

The word terrorism did not feature in his 2100-word, 15-minute address.

Pilloried by the right wing for being a closet socialist and waging war against the wealthy, Obama stuck to his theme of the need for a more equitable society, saying the country's founding fathers did not fight to replace the "tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob."

"That fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action," the U.S President said, pressing for a less selfish and more humane and giving society. In an argument that can also find resonance in today's India, Obama acknowledged that some government programs were outworn and inadequate, but the need for government intervention remained despite the caviling of opponents of the government's overbearing role.

Earlier, the President was sworn in for a second term by Chief Justice John Roberts with the barest of stutters in a magnificent spectacle on the steps of the Capitol, watched by more than 600,000 people braving cold temperatures. The pageant of democracy was enhanced by rousing entertainment in what is still arguably the freest society on the planet that allowed protesters to hold placards such as "God Hates Obama" on the route from the White House to the Capitol.

Sourc: timesofIndia