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Source: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=116161&d=7&m=11&y=2008
Don't Pin Much Hope on Obama
[Arab News-Saudi Arabia] Editorial - There are some quite extraordinary notions circulating about what sort of president Barack Obama will be, particularly in this part of the world - for example, that he is going to turn years of American Middle East policy on its head. This is a willful, and ultimately destructive, fantasy. There will be attempts at dialogue, even at finding peace in the Middle East, but no one should imagine that they would be radical or pursued with all his energy and determination. A president whose deputy is Joe Biden, a man who last year said that Israel is "the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East" and who is proud to call himself a Zionist, is not going to turn his back on the Israelis. Far from challenging Israel, the new team may turn out to be as pro-Israeli as the one it is replacing. If only because he is the first African-American president, he will want to carry as wide a section of American public opinion with him as possible in his decisions. If he wants a second term, he is going to be very cautious at best.