CAIRO, Egypt - Many in the Middle East believe Barack Obama failed to deliver on promises of a new U.S. approach in the region but still prefer him to presidential rival Mitt Romney, who they see as too close to Israel and too keen to project U.S. military might.
Whoever wins the
November 6 election faces a knot of regional issues that will not be
easy to unravel. World powers are split over the Syria conflict, a row
about Iran's nuclear ambitions rumbles on and Palestinian-Israeli
peacemaking is going nowhere.
Compounding the
challenge, the Middle East is a region where perceptions of fading U.S.
influence have been hardened by Arab uprisings that have toppled
dictators who were longtime U.S. allies, bringing Islamists in their
place.
Much of the Middle
East has changed dramatically during Obama's first term. But the
upheavals of the "Arab Spring" that ousted entrenched autocrats in
Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya were driven by the street rather than
U.S. policy, even if U.S. and European warplanes assisted Libyan rebels.
Far from winning
praise, some Egyptian activists criticised Obama's administration for
being slow to embrace the change.
"Obama was easy on
Mubarak at points and the American administration did not play a full
role in supporting the Egyptian revolution," said Mohamed Adel, a
spokesman for the April 6 movement that was at the forefront of the 2011
uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power.
But he said Romney
was not an attractive alternative for Egypt or the region, describing
him as more "aggressive" and citing the Republican's threats to U.S. aid
to Egypt during September protests at the U.S. embassy over an
anti-Islam film.
Source: Yahoo News...More..
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