Mideast echoes Obama's "change" message, skeptically

By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Middle East resonated on Wednesday to the yearning for change which drove Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election, but many predicted he would dash their hopes for a fresh start in Middle East policy.

"The region has many expectations. We hope (Obama) will help efforts to bring about permanent and just peace," said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki.

Abdel Galil Mustafa, the coordinator of the Egyptian protest movement Kefaya, said: "Obama is a good choice, because he is after change in American policies, from which we have suffered much over the last several decades."

Leading Syrian journalist Thabet Salem said the Arab world rejoiced at Obama's victory. "Not because he won but because it meant that President George W. Bush, who is regarded as a bloodsucker, and his clique, were gone," he said.

The policies of Bush's outgoing administration have had a direct and often violent impact on the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, where antagonism toward Washington is widespread.

Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 in the face of overwhelming Arab opposition and paid less attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict than any U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.

He included Iran is his "axis of evil" and encouraged Israel's failed attempt in 2006 to crush the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla movement Hezbollah in Lebanon. Many Muslims saw his "war on terror" as a covert crusade against Islam.

Obama now faces the challenge of repairing relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds while convincing Americans that he can also prevent a repetition of the 2001 attacks on U.S. soil.

Gholamali Haddadadel, a senior adviser to Iran's most powerful figure Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: "Obama's election displays the failure of America's policies around the globe. Americans have to change their policies to rescue themselves from the quagmire created by Bush."

Ali Aghamohammadi, another close aide to Khamenei, said: "We are not fully optimistic but with a real change in American policy there will be a capacity to improve ties."

Iraqis said they wanted change in U.S. policy but differed over whether that meant U.S. troops should stay or leave.

"I as an Iraqi am asking Obama to keep his promises about the withdrawal of the U.S. security forces... We don't need an occupation here," saud Iraqi journalist Baqi Naqid.

HOPE AND SCEPTICISM

But housewife Um Saba denounced Obama's plan to pull out troops as immoral. "They came on a mission. They should complete it. The security should be 100 percent when they leave. They cannot leave us like that," she said.

A mixture of hope and skepticism was the hallmark of Arab and Iranian popular reaction to the election of Obama, the first African-American president in U.S. history.