a new political leader emerges on the landscape, raising the world's hopes that a new age is upon us, and, then, reality sets in, and we discover that hopes and expectations do not always coincide. Such has been the fate of US President Barack Obama, according to a survey taken in the Middle East recently. Support for the president in the Middle East has taken a nosedive. Following Obama's landmark speech in Cairo in 2009, hopes were high for a new beginning on political terms between the Middle East and the US, which, under the Bush Administration, had attempted to impose American-style governance in Iraq and, by extension, the rest of the region. The Bush Administration had also unabashedly supported Israel on nearly every issue regarding its relations with the Arab countries of the region. Obama made every indication that he would change that course, but entrenched interests in the US have made it very difficult. Getting tough with Israel was a priority that presented numerous political potholes, given the strong influence of the Jewish lobby in the US. Obama has gone further than any of his predecessors in bucking that lobby, but certainly, in the eyes of Middle Easterners, he has not gone nearly far enough. In fact, the two issues in which Obama has invested the most energy — Palestine and improvement of relations with the Muslim world — received the lowest approval ratings from respondents in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Given the interfaith initiatives initiated by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah, the time has come for Western political powers to reciprocate. One speech by the president of the US will not accomplish much of anything, especially given the harm done to US-Arab relations during the Bush Administration. Obama has gotten one thing right: the key to peace in the Middle East is a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian question. Without it, his poll numbers will continue to dive, and they don't have a whole lot of room in which to dive lower. __
