Share this story!            

Obama viewed as an ‘internationalist president’

* Expert says Muslims expect US president-elect to live up to the principles of self-determination, justice and human rights

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama has been welcomed in the world as an ‘internationalist president’, the antithesis of George W Bush, who is often regarded as a ‘swaggering Texas cowboy’, according to Prof John Esposito.
Esposito, a leading US authority on Islam, believes that Obama’s foreign policy will be expected to be all the things that many in the Muslim world saw as lacking in the Bush administration, which was viewed as neo-colonial, unilateral, arrogant, militant and interventionist.
An Obama administration will be expected to be multilateral, favouring diplomacy over military threats and intervention, and avoiding what many believe was a neo-colonialist American foreign policy whose verbal commitment to democracy promotion and human rights was hypocritical. Obama’s administration cannot, like Bush’s, fail to ‘walk the way it talks’.
Esposito notes that the Bush administration continued to look the other way in its relations with authoritarian Muslim allies. It refused to accept the election of Hamas, and while it condemned Hizbollah, it sat on the sidelines as Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon, destroying much of its infrastructure in a war whose victims were overwhelmingly civilians.
Expectations:
Many Muslims today expect Obama to live up to the principles of self-determination, justice and human rights that they associate with America and break with the Bush administration’s double standard in not promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East.
Esposito points out that most Muslims, like Westerners, are deeply concerned about religious extremism and terrorism, considering that the majority of attacks and victims have been in the Muslim world. For most Muslims, who admire the West’s freedoms, technologies, and rule of law, the major issues are respect for Islam and Muslims. Many will be looking for an American administration that emphasises diplomacy and dialogue. They will expect co-existence and constructive engagement rather than interference, intervention or dominance in America’s relations with the Muslim world; the promotion of democratisation as self-determination; economic and educational assistance rather than the transfer of substantial military arms and equipment to authoritative regimes; and a more balanced policy in its approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Home | Main

Share this story!