Obama magic charms Arab foes. (Iranian President not ready to be Obamarised and will instead continue to build the nuclear plant for his people)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Photo/REUTERS

BEIRUT, Sunday

Barack Obama’s open-handed approach to the Middle East has won him praise from some Arab leaders viewed by previous US presidents as deadly enemies.

Obama is a flicker of hope amid the imperialist darkness, President Muammar Gaddafi told a rally of his supporters last week.

The Libyan leader, once a thorn in America’s side, was dubbed a mad dog by former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He has mended ties with Washington since 2003.

He (Obama) speaks logically. Arrogance no longer exists in the American approach which was previously based on dictating to the rest of the world to meet its own conditions, President Gaddafi said.

President Obama has also earned conditional tributes from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Palestinian Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah — all at times linked by Washington with terrorism.

See real change

Even Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recognised that Mr Obama might offer something new. We speak with great respect for Obama. But we are realists. We want to see real change, he told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. We feel that Obama must now follow his words with actions.

The readiness of America’s adversaries to acknowledge that President Obama has brought a more sensitive verbal approach to the region is striking. In contrast, some traditional US allies such as Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak have kept tight-lipped.

Conservative Arab leaders may have misgivings about President Obama’s overtures to their own regional rivals, Iran and Syria, and may fear that he will in time renew US pressure for human rights and democratic reform in their own autocratic systems.

But for many in the Middle East, President Obama’s search for dialogue with Iran, his declaration in Turkey this month that America was not at war with Islam, his stress on a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and his plans to withdraw from Iraq constitute a reassuring change from the perceived belligerence and pro-Israeli bias of his predecessor George W. Bush. (Reuters)

source.nation.ke