[Marxism] Obama influencing Middle East elections

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

from the June 11, 2009 edition - 
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0611/p06s28-usfp.html
Wildcard in Iran election: Obama
His Cairo speech, combined with other early decisions, may have 
influenced Lebanon's election Sunday – and could have an impact on 
Iran's presidential vote Friday.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

The verdict is in: Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world last week 
has already had an impact, specifically in the surprise victory Sunday 
of a pro-Western coalition in legislative elections in Lebanon.

With the unexpected defeat of Lebanon's Hizbullah-led coalition, some 
regional analysts are wondering if Mr. Obama's approach – a respectful 
stance towards Islam, coupled with a firm rejection of the kind of 
violent extremism that has attracted some Muslims – might also have an 
impact in Friday's presidential elections in Iran.

Signs of an early impact don't stop there. Consider Israeli Prime 
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hastily called policy speech this Sunday, 
which some experts in Israeli affairs say would not be happening expect 
for the new American president's approach to the region – and many 
Israelis' attraction to it.

You might call it the Obama Effect.

"The Lebanese elections came out the way they did because of the Obama 
speech," says Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for 
Near Eastern affairs and member of the advisory council of the Israel 
Policy Forum, a group that advocates for Mideast peace. "The impact was 
particularly swift and strong in the Arab world."

With Obama's Cairo speech coming as it did just three days before voting 
in an election the US had been closely monitoring, the presidential 
discourse acted something like a campaign closer.

While other local factors were certainly at work in Lebanon, some 
analysts say Obama's less aggressive stance on democracy than George W. 
Bush's, along with his case for modernization of Muslim countries 
through international cooperation, made a pro-Western political 
perspective palatable again.

Result? A surprise win by Lebanon's pro-Western March 14 coalition.

Some of these same factors are at work in Pakistan, some analysts 
believe, where not just cosmopolitan Karachi businessmen but also humble 
villagers in culturally traditional areas are starting to take back 
ground lost to Taliban and pro-Al-Qaeda groups.

While Obama's speech was a high-profile act, some observers say any 
impact it has had can only be explained in the context of other Obama 
administration initiatives. Among them:

•Obama making one of his first official acts the naming of George 
Mitchell as his Mideast envoy;

•The president's Nowruz (Persian New Year) message to Iranians in March;

•The administration's quick attention to the Pakistani refugees left 
homeless by fighting with advancing Taliban forces;

These factors and more laid the groundwork for Obama's words from Cairo 
to fall on receptive ears.

As important as Obama's speech was, "It was Joe Biden who carried the 
[Lebanese] election," says Steven Spiegel, director of the Center for 
Middle East Development at UCLA.

Referring to Vice-President Biden's March visit and Secretary of State 
Hillary Clinton's earlier stop in Lebanon, he says that kind of 
sustained attention from a new administration helped Obama's words ring 
true to skeptical Muslims.

"Everybody was complaining about Biden and Clinton in Lebanon," that it 
would be seen as interference or heavy-handed, adds Mr. Spiegel. "But 
now everyone is saying it was a brilliant move."

Any "Obama factor" in Iran's presidential contest will be difficult to 
gauge, Iran experts say, because the overriding issue in the campaign is 
the economy and what is widely perceived domestically as President 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's poor stewardship of it.

But even in that context, Iranians who see Obama's promise of closer 
international ties (as opposed to the threat of deeper economic 
sanctions) as one avenue to economic recovery may reject Mr. 
Ahmadinejad's confrontational style as better suited to the era of 
President Bush.

Still, even some regional analysts who found strong elements in Obama's 
speech say they are dubious of any short-term impact as concrete as 
influencing an election.

"It's hard for me to imagine a significant number of Lebanese voters 
changing their mind based on what President Obama said in Cairo a few 
days before," says James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage 
Foundation in Washington.

If anything, Mr. Phillips sees a better likelihood of some marginal 
influence in Iran. "The sanctions have had an impact on the Iranian 
economy, and the poor state of US-Iran relations is directly tied to 
that," he says.

Then there are some pro-reform forces who worry that any "Obama effect" 
may be the comfort the president's speech has been construed by some as 
offering to the Muslim world's entrenched powers.

"The reaction has been largely positive, but less so among the activists 
who would have liked to see stronger support for democracy and human 
rights and some condemnation of the Egyptian status quo," says Dina 
Guirguis, executive director of Voices for a Democratic Egypt in Washington.

Obama's speech "indulged" a traditional interpretation of Islam, she 
says, in particular as it pertains to women, that is not likely to 
encourage a wave of modernization across the region.

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