Arab News editorializes on what the election of Barack Obama means for the Middle East. In doing so, it throws a bucket of cold water on the ebullience of many who seem to be expecting radical change in US policies. “Ain’t gonna happen,” the paper says. Obama is as American as the American Dream he manifests and will put American interests first, always and ever.

The paper notes that Obama’s Vice President, Joe Biden, is on record as claiming to be ‘proud to be a Zionist’. Further, Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel should make it even more clear that the US will not be walking away from its relationship with Israel. (Amusingly—in a perverted sort of way–Emanuel is being called a ‘neo-con’ by some of the American leftists blogs! I guess that’s a further bit of proof that when the term ‘neo-con’ is bandied about it’s really just a code word for ‘Jewish’.)

The paper doesn’t offer any ‘Yes, but…’ arguments. It sees Obama as bound by existing policies to a large extent. The new Administration will be focused on domestic, economic issues largely to the exclusion of other issues, it claims. I think this is basically right.

Editorial: Don’t pin much hope on Obama

Having welcomed the historic victory of Barack Obama in the US presidential election, let us begin by shedding too much expectations of him. They are likely to be dashed — generating a great deal of pain and resentment into the bargain.

There are some quite extraordinary notions circulating about what sort of president he will be, particularly in this part of the world — for example, that he is going to turn years of American Middle East policy on its head. This is a willful, and ultimately destructive, fantasy.

Despite attempts by his more extreme opponents during the campaign to paint him as un-American, President Obama is not going to run the White House in the interests of anyone other than the American people. Nor should his victory be seen as a defeat or comeuppance for the US, although that is how it is being presented in some corners of the world. That is to ignore that a majority of Americans, fed up with the past and seeing him as the personification of the American dream, voted enthusiastically for him. He is, by virtue of his election, everything that America stands for. He is Uncle Sam, the all-American kid, The Chief.
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