The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza echoes White: “All eyes were on Obama to see how he would perform on a world stage with every political reporter of any consequence either on the trip with him or watching closely on television. And, as he has done before in the course of the campaign, Obama seemed to be up to the moment — sensing the need to convey gravitas and bipartisanship while also strongly defending his own beliefs about America's role in Iraq and the broader Middle East.”
Middle Easterners are less impressed.
Sneers from the Arab Press
As Sabria S. Jawhar of the Saudi Gazette wrote ,
The prevailing wisdom among many Americans and most Arabs is that the best candidate to lift the United States out of the muddy hole it dug for itself in Iraq is Barack Obama. John McCain, at least on this side of the world, doesn’t even run a distant second. Obama is holding the future of free world in his hands.Jawhar goes as far as calling Obama “a lightweight” in the Middle East, with his trip amounting to little more than “a publicity campaign and photo op. His feet firmly planted on Iraq and Afghanistan soil will give him certain measure of credibility in the eyes of the American voter.” But it won’t win him friends in the Arab world.As much as he is considered the new hope for war-weary Americans, his trip to the Middle East and Europe is far from impressive. He is visiting Afghanistan and Iraq because American troops are there. He will visit Israel because America is an unconditional ally of that country. And he is visiting Germany because that is where his media moment will come. But more on Germany in a moment. What Obama is not doing is visiting an Arab country that would demonstrate that Muslim opinion matters to him. Not just the Muslims who lost family members to American firepower, but to Muslims who are eager for normal relations with the United States.
Obama the Charmer--and They Don't Mean It Kindly
Qatar’s Gulf Times was even more derisive in an unsigned editorial, sneering at Obama’s visit to “Kabul’s heavily guarded bunker otherwise known as the presidential palace,” belittling the way “Obama charmed his way to the Democratic nomination” and concluding that “the wily McCain, 71, will deliver constant reminders that youthful exuberance does not inspire confidence.”
Obama’s friends in Israel weren’t much kinder. Columnist Yigal Walt went as far as comparing Obama to Palestinians for their skills at elevating branding above substance: Yaseer Arafat, the PLO chairman, Walt, wrote , “did not shy away from resorting to manipulations and blatant lies, fully realizing that a picture is worth a thousand words and that catchy messages are more effective than elaborate explanations.”
The paragraph is a calibrated set-up to better indict Obama on visceral terms, in the shadow of Arafat: “Thus far, Obama’s plans and character have been far from impressive. In recent months he mostly proved himself to be an inconsistent character able to sell any message to any audience – while saying the opposite later.”
The Up Side, After All
None of this bodes well for Obama's reputation in the Middle East. Yet it isn't the whole story. A story Friedman relates in that column cited earlier, and the conclusion he draws from it, are instructive:
My colleague Michael Slackman, The Times’s bureau chief in Cairo, told me about a recent encounter he had with a worker at Cairo’s famed Blue Mosque: “Gamal Abdul Halem was sitting on a green carpet. When he saw we were Americans, he said: ‘Hillary-Obama tied?’ in thick, broken English. He told me that he lived in the Nile Delta, traveling two hours one way everyday to get to work, and still he found time to keep up with the race. He didn’t have anything to say bad about Hillary but felt that Obama would be much better because he is dark-skinned, like him, and because he has Muslim heritage. ‘For me and my family and friends, we want Obama,’ he said. ‘We all like what he is saying.’ ”Yes, all of this Obama-mania is excessive and will inevitably be punctured should he win the presidency and start making tough calls or big mistakes. For now, though, what it reveals is how much many foreigners, after all the acrimony of the Bush years, still hunger for the “idea of America” — this open, optimistic, and, indeed, revolutionary, place so radically different from their own societies.
