The rhetoric of his Cairo speech has soured: the president can only move the debate on with a sea-change in US attitudes
A GOOD COMMENT
Jonathan Steele
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 August 2010
"....A year later the disappointment is massive. A poll taken in six Arab countries in June and July shows the air has gone from the Obama bubble. The percentage of Arabs with a positive view of the US has sunk since last summer from 45% to 20%, while the negative percentage has risen from 23% to 67%. Only 16% call themselves "hopeful" about US policy.......
The pollsters did not ask why people changed their views so rapidly. But a clue of sorts is in one of its most remarkable findings. On Iran a majority were not convinced by Tehran's denials of having a nuclear weapons programme. The Obama administration will presumably be pleased to learn that 57% think Iran is trying to make a bomb. What will be more troubling for the White House is the finding that only 20% think foreign countries are entitled to put pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear programme and, even more strikingly, that 57% believe it would be positive for the region for Iran to have the bomb.
This is astonishing, at least for anybody who took at face value the Washington line that Iran is perceived as the biggest threat within the region. Bush and Cheney spent years trying to ally Arab states against Iran, including by attempting to make Shia/Sunni differences a major political issue. Iran is of course a Shia country. Obama continued the policy, but it has backfired. With the exception of Lebanon, the countries in the poll not only have huge Sunni majorities, they are the very countries on which Washington has spent most effort to build an anti-Iranian alliance. Their rulers may take the US line, but their people do not.....the poll found 88% of its respondents named Israel as the world's biggest threat, followed by the US at 77%. Only 10% cited Iran.
Since his Cairo speech Obama's Middle Eastern failures have been glaring...
Just as important is the pressure that pro-Israel campaigners put on the mainstream US media. They warn people off the very word Zionist as though only antisemites use it and demand Israel be treated as a special country whose politics deserve more sympathy than others.
In fact US publishers, editors, and reporters carry the biggest responsibility for the rotten state of US policy in the Middle East..."
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 August 2010
"....A year later the disappointment is massive. A poll taken in six Arab countries in June and July shows the air has gone from the Obama bubble. The percentage of Arabs with a positive view of the US has sunk since last summer from 45% to 20%, while the negative percentage has risen from 23% to 67%. Only 16% call themselves "hopeful" about US policy.......
The pollsters did not ask why people changed their views so rapidly. But a clue of sorts is in one of its most remarkable findings. On Iran a majority were not convinced by Tehran's denials of having a nuclear weapons programme. The Obama administration will presumably be pleased to learn that 57% think Iran is trying to make a bomb. What will be more troubling for the White House is the finding that only 20% think foreign countries are entitled to put pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear programme and, even more strikingly, that 57% believe it would be positive for the region for Iran to have the bomb.
This is astonishing, at least for anybody who took at face value the Washington line that Iran is perceived as the biggest threat within the region. Bush and Cheney spent years trying to ally Arab states against Iran, including by attempting to make Shia/Sunni differences a major political issue. Iran is of course a Shia country. Obama continued the policy, but it has backfired. With the exception of Lebanon, the countries in the poll not only have huge Sunni majorities, they are the very countries on which Washington has spent most effort to build an anti-Iranian alliance. Their rulers may take the US line, but their people do not.....the poll found 88% of its respondents named Israel as the world's biggest threat, followed by the US at 77%. Only 10% cited Iran.
Since his Cairo speech Obama's Middle Eastern failures have been glaring...
Just as important is the pressure that pro-Israel campaigners put on the mainstream US media. They warn people off the very word Zionist as though only antisemites use it and demand Israel be treated as a special country whose politics deserve more sympathy than others.
In fact US publishers, editors, and reporters carry the biggest responsibility for the rotten state of US policy in the Middle East..."
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