Nine months after assuming office, US President Barack Obama was hastily awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, on the basis of eloquent speeches about his plans to change the world. He had not done anything yet. Today, with him not having done anything in five years, he deserves to be awarded an Oscar for Best Actor. Indeed, he has been able to fool everyone with his lofty language, which fades away merely by emerging from his lips, leaving nothing but daydreams and promises, and with his ability to embody roles and convince the audience of his seriousness, with matters ending up as if he had never been there after he leaves the "stage". The Middle East's share of the "craft" of the first black President of the United States has been quite a large one. Indeed, he had showered it with hopes of a shining bright future, in which all love each other and live together in eternal peace with the purest of intentions. Those who heard his "historical" speech in Cairo even dreamt that he would take them to a different planet, where the treacherous and hateful Israel they know does not exist, and where there is no war, no destruction and no armies, as well as no hunger, no poverty and no debt. The Arabs had one big problem to which they wanted him to help reach a just solution. Today, their world is rife with complex and blood-spattered problems and with foreign interference, while he has shifted his role to that of a spectator. Every now and then, he draws red lines, only for it to appear later that he cannot distinguish them from other colors. The Palestinians, for example, thought that a president had finally come to the White House who would pressure Israel and force it to recognize their state. Instead, they have seen this theoretical state of theirs shrink further and further during his term, such as to nearly turn into dots that can barely be distinguished on the map of Greater Israel, eaten away at by settlers every day, while he worries about the security of the Hebrew State from the "hordes of fundamentalists" spread by his propaganda all over the map of the region, from Peshawar to Tetouan. As for the efforts exerted by his Secretary of State, who really loves to travel, they are focused on convincing them of the necessity of taking the fears of Israelis into consideration and reassuring them. The Syrians in turn waited, as they were being killed and displaced and seeing their country destroyed, for the world's only superpower to save them from their tyrannical and heavily-armed president... And they are still waiting for American Representatives and Senators, who know nothing about the Middle East except that there are ferocious Arabs there waiting for the opportunity to throw the Jews into the sea, to be kind enough to quell their fears of weapons that have not been sent, and will not be sent, falling into the hands of "terrorists". As for the repeated warnings the US president directs at Iran that he will not allow it to obtain nuclear weapons, they have become like the routine statements issued by the State Department warning Americans against traveling to areas of unrest, or those published by the Health Department advising them to get vaccinated before visiting distant countries. Meanwhile, the regime of the Ayatollahs, drunk with its Iraqi "prize", digs enrichment sites in the mountains, and then demands that he take practical steps in order to prove that he seriously wishes to negotiate, while it continues to blatantly interfere in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and the rest of the neighborhood unhampered. Even the Europeans, who thought they were "on his side", although not knowing against whom, awoke to find surveillance equipment in their bedrooms recording their every breath, while he negotiates to sell them the rubbish of his hollow Hollywood culture. Perhaps it is time for the Arabs to go back to their old saying, "none better to scratch your skin than your own fingernails", give up waiting for the illusion of America "understanding" their concerns, start resolving their problems by themselves, and leave to Obama the pleasures of rhetoric and elocution.
