"The Obama Era: Arab hopes or Illusions?
Some in Arab media still insist on defining Obama as a Muslim even though the man spent about two years negating the accusation of Islam, just like someone defends himself against the accusation of committing some crime.
Widespread disappointment in the Arab world generates varieties and colors of wishful thinking. The state of humiliation and indignity Arab regimes have experienced on the hands of Bush create exaggerated optimism to the point that some in Arab media have announced the end of American imperialism.
While it is still too early to judge Obama's era, there is some indication to make preliminary assessments about the direction of foreign policy in his administration.
The inauguration speech was comprehensive regarding domestic and foreign policy. It included general slogans, references and promises, but it would be hasty to conclude that Obama has divorced all Bush's policies.
Quite the contrary. He was perfectly clear and frank in his speeches and references to the Middle East during the electoral campaign. The higher his poll ratings, the closer he grew to Bush's policies and intentions towards Israel, which are the origin while Arabs are a secondary detail in a policy obsessed with Israel's security. Security is the right of only one people for them.
The inauguration speech included an insinuation towards the Islamic world, but it was met with exaggeration and reverence in Arab media. The series of wars and humiliation by the Bush administration has made Arabs easy victims of pretty talk, only comparatively.
However, Obama's "reference" towards the Islamic world came in the context of his speech about terrorism and his pursuit of terrorists. In other words, he made no methodical shift from Bush's administration's perspective (or that of Zionists), which links the Muslim to the terrorist.
He offered no meaningful initiative to causes which concern the Arab and Islamic worlds, such as American wars and traditional western orientalist hostility, the United Sates' support for tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, and Israel and its incessant wars and aggression.
Obama called on some regimes which "repress" their people, but everyone knows that those include only regimes which object to the American will. This means that Obama's politics won't be different from Bush's politics with regard to democracy. Violation of Arabs and Muslims rights are allowed and praised if the oppressor
The issue of withdrawal from Iraq has also changed. Today he speaks very vaguely about a "responsible withdrawal" from Iraq, after he used to promise complete withdrawal within a six-month period at the beginning of his electoral campaign.
As for Afghanistan, he promised to escalate the war there and increase the number of occupying troops. This means that Obama considers a policy of "surge" in Afghanistan in return for Bush's "surge" in Iraq.
Hence, the difference between the two men, Bush and Obama, is only with regard to the location of downpour of bombs and rockets, not about ceasing them altogether.
However, America's pursuit of terrorists has become a familiar issue for villagers in various places in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where American warplanes monstrously shell for the remotest suspicion of the existence of someone wanted or their brother or uncle or father. So the operations remind us of cowboys' adventures in American movies.
The Arab world anxiously awaited some kind of statement from Obama about Israeli aggression (with participation of some Arab regimes) towards Gaza. Obama's team excused his silence by pointing to Bush as president, albeit Obama issued a clear stance towards the Mumbai explosions in India and he certainly didn't take refuge in utter silence then.
Obama's fans didn't wait for long before he articulated a stance about the Middle East. He gave a speech at the State Department only two days after he became president. He said nothing new, though there were some in Arab media that insisted on clinging on to false hope.
Obama's speech was a series of the usual clichés used in American foreign policy towards the Middle East. "She" is the sweetheart in their opinion, and the state of aggression and occupation in ours. Obama's analysis of the barbaric aggression towards Gaza indicates his policies towards our region.
The general talk, in his speech, about humanitarian suffering in Gaza fell within the context of previous points he'd said during the election campaign. Its essence was that the Palestinian people themselves bear the responsibility of their own suffering, and he named Hamas in this regard.
It is no coincidence that no Palestinian women or children were ever considered victims of Israeli terrorism, because Israel has a monopoly over the characterization of victimhood. The disproportionate comparison between the number of Israeli victims (the state of Israel has resorted to deception, as usual, by counting those who suffered “shock” from Hamas’s rockets among the wounded, as if all the Strip’s people didn’t suffer shock from the Israeli aggression) and the number of Palestinian victims in Gaza was intended to exonerate Israel from war crimes.
Obama continued to stress the importance of preventing “smuggling” of weapons even though Security Council resolution 1680 addresses only prohibition of “illegal” weapons, so that Palestinian forces aligned with “moderation” take advantage of smuggling “legal” weapons.
While it is true that Obama demanded opening the crossings, this contradicts Israel’s tight grip on the Palestinian people’s neck in the Strip, with American cooperation and support.
Of course, this is not reason for absolute pessimism, unless we believed Anwar Sadat in that all affairs are in America’s hands. Change, lest we forget, can come from the Middle East, even if it doesn’t come from the US, but this requires determination and action."