Middle East Politics.Net » Obama

Damascus and Washington

sanajong — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:46:03 +0000

Syrian top officials praise president-elect Obama’s choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. They see in this Obama’s seriousness for achieving peace in the Middle East. Progressive liberals back home however, who have backed the Obama candidacy for President are not happy with his choice. Of course, they too want peace in the Middle East, as stability there would provide stability around the world, especially in the United States. In addition, Obama plans to rescind the Syria Accountability Act and send a US ambassador to Syria in 2009.

What do you think are the positives that we have to look forward as a nation in terms of relations with the Middle East now that Hillary Clinton is our new secretary of state?

And what do you think about the young president-elect’s willingness to allow Syria to play again on the national stage?

Sade San A Jong

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Obama and Syria

sanajong — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:54:55 +0000

In this age of a shift in power in the United States, our President-elect has made the worrisome—and perhaps wise decision–to appoint many familiar names and faces to his new administration. In doing so however, he must be careful not to make the same mistakes of his predecessors. In respect of the Middle East, he must be bold enough to realize the real problems that lie between the region’s fragile nations and Israel. In addition, he must end the scapegoating of Syria and take the reins of the main dispute between Israel and Palestine.

Is President-elect Obama strong enough and willing to do this?

Will he confront Israel in an effort to ease US tensions with other Middle Eastern nations, and perhaps ultimately bring Palestine and Israel to real peace?

Or will the President-elect focus on more mundane and superficial tensions such as Syria and Israel?

Sade San A Jong

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Obama May Favor Israel’s Likud Party

rooparad — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:35:45 +0000

Israel’s February’s election will be an important one for Washington and the new Obama administration. Though the Likud Party is the more conservative, the Kadima Party, with which Bush has worked most recently, has promoted an accelerated “two state solution.” The Bush Administration has agreed with this approach. Critics say that because of President Bush’s handling of the situation and the current Gaza crisis, President-elect Obama will re-evaluate how he can bring change to this region of the Middle East and how it will be most practical to build up a Palestinian community alongside Israel. Even though President Bush had a huge amount of support for building a Palestinian community, his timing was off and his methods proved problematic.

President-elect Obama is looking to change the situation, especially with the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip. Critics believe Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party will also promote a different policy than Kadima and want to see Palestinian leadership and community develop before encouraging the establishment of a prosperous Palestinian state.

Roopa Radhakrishnan

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Turkish Officials Pleased with Obama’s Cabinet

cicek — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:07:52 +0000

The reaction of Turkish officials to Barack Obama’s choice of statesmen is positive, especially that of Hillary Clinton. “The announcement on Clinton is due to come at a news conference in Chicago,” said officials on Obama’s transition team. The incoming president has also asked Robert Gates, the current defense secretary, to keep his job for at least another year, sources close to the president-elect said earlier. For the important post of the national security adviser, the official closest to the president, Obama has chosen retired Gen. James Jones, a former top NATO commander. “We have very good relations with these three figures. We believe Obama is forming a very good national security cabinet,” said one Turkish official privately.”

Although Obama has gathered much support in Turkey, one of the most worrisome issues is the Armenian problem. The international arena should soon know the answer.

Aylin Cicek

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Iran Would Welcome Obama Talks

bjrussel — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:55:40 +0000

Iran’s Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie told Tokyo Koyodu News Agency that President Ahmadinejad would welcome talks with President-elect Barack Obama, as long as the talks are held openly and their contents made fully available to the press. Ahmadinejad has stated that he believes face-to-face diplomacy to be the most successful means to achieving a positive end, but that in order for that end to be reached the President-elect needs to change his tune. Obama has recently added his voice to the many calling for an immediate halt to Iran’s nuclear program that many believe to be aimed at creating nuclear weapons, but that Iran claims is solely for electricity generating purposes. However, the Iranian President states that the only means to achieve peace is for the President-elect to stand by his campaign promise of “change” and direct the new administration away from the approach of its predecessors.

Bridget Russell

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Obama is the Key to Syria-Israeli Peace-Talks

sanajong — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:57:34 +0000

Syria and Israel are both willing to sit down and talk. However, they want U.S. support and they want it in the form of Obama.

Israel is willing to negotiate with Syria and possibly return the now-occupied Golan Heights, if Syria agrees to stop aiding Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Palestine, groups that sponsor terrorism.

This is a new and very positive development.

Sade San A Jong

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U.S. and Libya Complete Long Diplomatic Process

rdickson — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:35:56 +0000

Gene Cretz (US State Dept. photo)

The U.S. Senate’s approval of Gene Cretz as the new ambassador to Libya, late Thursday, November 20, marks the first time in 36 years that the United States will have an ambassador in Libya, concluding the long road to diplomat relations between the two countries. However, throughout the Arab world, there are mixed and cautious feelings about the new relationship.

Hisham Youssef, the head of the Cabinet of Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa stated, “We welcome advancing relations between Libya and the United States and on the basis of agreements that they have had in the last several months and advancing the relations is something that we look at in a very positive and constructive way.” However, he is still skeptical due to the past tense relations between the outgoing Bush Administration and the Arab world as a whole, but added that people are looking forward to the new policies that will be adopted by the Obama administration.

Some critics in the Arab world, like political analyst for Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper, Rami Khouri, believe that the Bush administration is improving relations with Libya for the wrong reasons. He says, “I think this deal that the Libyans and the Americans and the West made, strikes me as incomplete because they gave up their nuclear industry in return for having normal relations . . . Libya is still an autocratic place which is very tightly run and the West is very happy to have relations with it and make money from oil and contracts and stuff like that . . . I’m a bit critical of how the West would completely ignore the internal conditions and the nature of the regime, especially a regime that talks about promoting freedom and democracy as Bush has been.”

Roy Dickson

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Syria Praises Obama’s Kept Promises

sanajong — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:32:07 +0000

Syrian Ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, praised Obama’s announcement that he planned on making good on a promise that he made one of the major platforms of his presidential campaign: to withdraw troops from Iraq in sixteen months.

This shows a level of respect and acknowledgment of the wishes of the people of the Middle East. In addition, President Elect-Obama promised no more air-strikes like the one that killed eight innocent Syrian civilians last month in an attempt to take out a mercenary smuggler into Iraq.

Is this the sign of a new and healthy relationship with the Mid-East?

I hope so.

Sade San A Jong

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American Politics and The Ripple Affect

hambolu — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:23:57 +0000

Two-weeks after the historic presidential election in the U.S., in which President-Elect Barack Obama became the first man of African descent to be elected to the office, Germany had a historic moment of its own. Derek Scally became the first ethnic Turk to be elected to the head of a political party. As leader of Germany’s Greens Party, he is a beacon of hope and symbolic change for the largest ethnic group in Germany, where Turks make up 3.3% of the nation’s population. Scally contends that he wants a society in which people of all ethnic backgrounds are working together for one Germany. After the election, party officials were said to be distributing “Yes We Cem” badges to the nation’s citizens. Scally was born to two immigrant Turkish parents in southern Germany.

Barack Obama said, “There is something happening in America…” and if people are following global politics, there seems to be a political, social and economic shift taking place all over the world. This is not an assertion that America began a global movement for justice, but the fact that America was, and many would argue still is, a racially obsessed society, and was able to elected a president of African descent democratically, suggests that there is hope for all marginalized people across the globe. America and Germany made history in 2008 and it will be interesting to watch which other countries follow suit.

Olorunbunmi Hambolu

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Agreement Reached on Troop Withdrawal in Iraq

dpgallag — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:20:56 +0000

Finally, after a year of negotiations, a pact has been reached regarding a timetable for American troop presence in Iraq. The agreement was agreed upon Sunday by President al-Maliki and his cabinet. Now the deal must make it through Iraqi parliament this week to be considered binding. Still, this is a major benchmark in the process and the pact is expected to pass. It establishes that all American troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011. In addition to this, it puts new laws into effect holding the troops more accountable for their actions by Iraqi courts and creating a phased drawback plan. It will be interesting to see if violence levels continue to rise now that an agreement has been reached, in addition to the first actions of newly-elected President Barack Obama following his inauguration.

Dennis Gallagher

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