No Hope and Little Change

Helle Dale /

US President Barack Obama waves at the end of his highly-anticipated address to the Muslim world on June 4, 2009 in the Grand Hall of Cairo University in Cairo. Obama vowed to forge a "new beginning" for Islam and America in a landmark speech to the world's Muslims, evoking a vision of peace after a smouldering cycle of "suspicion and discord."

For an Administration that started with the premise of improving relations with the “Muslim world,” as President Obama likes to put it, the results of the 2010 Arab Opinion Poll should be deeply disappointing.

Having experienced soaring hopes for the dawning of a new era in U.S.-Arab relations, Arabs are now reacting with bitterness to the fact that no change has taken place. And not only that, but as opinions of the Obama presidency are plummeting across the Middle East, support for the Iranian nuclear program is growing. From a policy, as well as public diplomacy, point of view, this is grim news.

Unrealistic expectations of the Obama presidency lie at the heart of the problem, raised mainly by the President himself, first during the presidential campaign and then in the first six months of his presidency. “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” he told university students in Cairo little over a year ago. (more…)