Obama's Pragmatism And Arab Issues

There are important considerations in which Obama may invest if he wants to make a transformation in his country’s dealing with Arab issues.

First of these considerations is that he, Obama, is the first person who won the presidency without being owned by powerful interest groups.

The amazing financial means collected by Obama’s campaign reached more than 600 billion dollars, most of it coming from small donations from ordinary citizens, not from the large amounts of money offered by the powerful interest groups. That fact released him from the power of these groups and their authority.

This means that Obama can, if he wants, take more courageous actions on issues in which the powerful interest groups, including organizations loyal to Israel, frequently play an influential role.

But the powerful interest groups not only gain influence through financing the elections campaigns but by gathering those who are loyal to them to vote in the elections and from their ability to form the public opinion regarding their issues of interest.

Here comes the importance of the second consideration, in which an important change took place inside the American Jewish Lobby. The recent years witnessed complaining in some Jewish circles about the lobby loyal to Israel (AIPAC). They consider it as representing the right-wing extremist attitudes which do not express the views of most of the American Jewish. They accused AIPAC of putting the entire American arena in situations that are detrimental to the American and Israeli interest through its strong authority and extremist stands.

The growing anger of this sector of the American Jewish leads to the establishment of a new lobby to challenge AIPAC in public and create some balance in the American attitudes concerning the region.

Although the influence of this new lobby and its abilities are still very limited when it is compared to AIPAC, its existence grants the new president a sort of political umbrella if he really wants to make a change in American policy.

Besides these two considerations, there is a third one, which is the immense movement that supported Obama. He, as president, can use it to back him before Congress and the media regarding any issue in which he intends to make changes.

But the true value of these positive considerations is restricted by whether the new president has the will to invest it or not, since this investment will mean necessarily engaging in battles when there is nothing force him to engage.

In other words, we, as Arabs, should be aware that Obama, firstly and lastly, is a president to the United States of America who won’t work except for its benefit. Accordingly, he won’t offer free gifts for those who do not have papers to work and move upon.

It’s not less important that Barack Obama will come into power in the midst of strong crises that threaten his country, and in order to achieve success, he should correctly use and invest his political weight and choose his battles carefully.

So, if there is not a clear Arab agenda that imposes itself, there will not be anything that makes Obama, the pragmatic and political man, use his political background in a case where the players play the role of the receiver and not the doer. In such a case, he will keep his political weight to other fights that are imposed on him.