Obama Hosting a National Talk Show (UK)

Barack Obama has become a regular fixture on US television. The President knows that he still has enough novelty value and star power to get the networks to clear their airtime and he's grabbing every chance to dominate the agenda from the bully pulpit.

It is a class act. Although at official events Mr Obama's message is usually scripted and read from teleprompter screens, he can talk his way out of trouble. I was moved to see the President win over US Marines at Camp Lejeune, although he opposed the Iraq war in which 4,000 of their comrades-in-arms lost their lives.

For now, his talk is invariably about the economy. Mr Obama is the most visible new president - not only because he's a great communicator, but because Europe is blaming America for the global economic crisis and looking to Mr Obama to lead the way out it. The President's ubiquity is designed to tell the US that it is in control of its own destiny. He must win this argument if his presidency is to succeed.

Even when the Administration doesn't have the best arguments, or gets badly mauled, the checks and balances of the US Constitution ensure that the country's options are debated at length; considered decisions emerge by a process of attrition.

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Pakistan's Major Threat: U.S. Ignorance (UAE)

U.S. ignorance regarding the ground realities of Pakistan is a source of major threat to Pakistan, both in terms of its internal dynamics and external security concerns. Taking the internal dynamics first, there were the crude U.S. interventions during the nation's reassertion of its self in the context of the long march and the demand for the restoration of the constitutional chief justice – with members of the U.S. Administration trying to bulldoze the opposition political leaders into abandoning the march to Islamabad and into making unholy compromises with their present favorite Pakistani – President Zardari. It is a testimony to the Pakistani people that the U.S. failed in its nefarious designs and at the end of the day had to make conciliatory statements regarding the restoration of Chief Justice Chaudhry. But imperial hubris could not resist sending the CIA chief to Islamabad to coincide with the CJP's date of restoration of office.

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Obama's Exit Strategy for Afghanistan (PAKISTAN)

Talking to CBS TV, US President Barack Obama has said: “What we can’t do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems. So what we’re looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there’s got to be an exit strategy...there’s got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift”. This remark has immediately given rise to media headings like “US wants out of Afghanistan”. Yet there are other aspects of what Mr Obama has set on foot as his strategy in Afghanistan that point to the other extreme, like reinforcing the American troops there and not stopping the drone attacks.

What the remark clearly represents is President Obama’s sense of the “middle ground”. He is opposed to the intellectual foundations of the strategy that brought on the Iraq war and thus forced Washington to ignore Afghanistan. He wants to avoid the impression that if the Bush Administration was reluctant to take on the Taliban, he is willing to bring a tougher war to Afghanistan. Another impression of military assertion he wants to avoid is linked to the tough envoy Mr Richard Holbrooke whose challenge to the Serbia of Milosevic resulted in the destruction of that recalcitrant state.

Mr Obama’s intellectual repugnance of the neo-con philosophy that underpinned the American adventure in the Middle East and caused a rift with America’s European allies was expressed in his recent comment of admiration for Reinhold Niebuhr’s book The Irony of American History (1952).

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Smart Democracy for the U.S. (LEBANON)

There are several levels of discussion when it comes to democracy promotion in the Middle East. On one level, there is the current debate between icons of American think tanks and policy practitioners on whether post-George W. Bush America should in fact continue supporting democracy promotion in the region, and whether such support should extend to Islamists. On another more micro level, there is the question of what to support, and how to support it.

The Obama administration has in fact inherited several foreign assistance programs to support democratic reform in the region, including the US Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) with its various pillars and programs. MEPI's small, local grants component, administered by the two regional offices in Abu Dhabi and Tunis (with limited oversight from Washington), has been a success. As opposed to the larger grants channeled to American NGOs in the region, small grants projects are led by local organizations directly funded to implement micro-projects based on ideas fleshed out cooperatively between applicants and the regional offices to meet both applicants' and MEPI's priority areas in each country.

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The Olmert Myth and Barak's Problem (ISRAEL)

Even before the tears have dried over the approaching death of Ehud Olmert's government - after a long, drawn-out period at death's door - another new myth is making the rounds: Olmert was a good prime minister.

Not just good, but excellent. Sharp. Decisive. Involved in the details and developments. This is absolutely the opposite of what his defense attorneys claim in his criminal cases. There he is never responsible, had no idea, those were only trivial matters handled by underlings such as Shula Zaken and travel agencies.

The most interesting facet of the Olmert myth, which even the bearers of the tale admit, is that reality on all its levels - security, political, economic and social - is actually quite depressing. A bad situation and a good prime minister is an Israeli miracle.

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Iran targets the US (JAPAN)

The prevention of a nuclear Iran constitutes a top US national security priority. It sheds light on a special aspect of US-Israel relationship: defiance of mutual threats.

Iran pursues nuclear capabilities to advance strategic goals, which are led by the super-goal: hegemony over the Persian Gulf and its natural resources. Those who undermine the super-goal are considered super-enemies, targeted by super-capabilities. Hence, Tehran would use its nuclear power/threat, first and foremost, to force the US and NATO out of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. It would then turn it against Iraq - its arch rival since the seventh century - and against Saudi Arabia, which is considered an apostate regime. All Gulf states are perceived by Iran as a key prize, required in order to control the flow and the price of oil and to bankroll its megalomaniac regional and global aspirations (e.g. leading Islam's drive to dominate the globe).

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Washington and Damascus (EGYPT)

In his January 20 inauguration speech and in subsequent statements, US President Barack Obama has called for establishing new relations with the Muslim world based on common interests and mutual respect. He has also advocated the settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict, notably the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, as well as the combating of terrorism. Although he has not referred specifically to Syria, there is no doubt that Obama recognizes Damascus' significant role in all these crucial issues. Unlike his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who "excommunicated" Syria's President Bashar Assad, Obama wishes to engage him.

A major concern of Obama's is nuclear Iran, its critical role in Iraq and Afghanistan, its strategic military alliance with Syria, its strong ideological links with the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah and its backing of the Palestinian Sunni Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Washington intends to engage Tehran in an attempt to reach agreement on these critical issues, wherein Damascus' role would be rather secondary. But since the prospects of an American-Iranian deal are slim, Washington should pursue an more promising alternative policy of engaging Damascus in a new, bold and visionary strategy for the Middle East.

This new strategy would have three main objectives, indeed challenges.

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Will Obama go beyond the superficial? (EGYPT)

In his first interview with an Arab television network soon after his inauguration, US President Barack Obama confirmed his intention to "engage" right away with "all the major parties" involved in the Middle East.

Such engagement, he went on, would start with "listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."

Obama has since dispatched his personal envoy to the Middle East, Senator George Mitchell, to do just that. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman and a number of other US officials have also been touring the region. Dialogue with Iran has been advanced as the best means to diffuse tension between Tehran and Washington, while inter-Arab reconciliation has been encouraged.

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Overloaded With the Reset Button (RUSSIA)

I was travelling last week, but even if I'd been on the moon, I would have heard about the Clinton-Lavrov peregruzka-perezagruzka reset button debacle.

The blogosphere was abuzz. American bloggers went into an orgy of self-flagellation: We're stupid, have no Russian translators and don't know that Russia has a different alphabet. Russian bloggers were divided. Some thought that the Americans were stupid -- natch -- and many proposed different words, but a few thought that перегрузка was an acceptable translation of "reset." Russian conspiracy nuts were out in full force. They said it was a secret code. After перегрузка (overloading) of nuclear Armageddon -- symbolized by the red button -- there would be перезагрузка (reloading) of life. The button was an invitation for Russians to join Americans in the post-nuclear afterlife.

You can't make this stuff up. So what should have been on that dumb button?

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Obama: A "New Beginning" for Iran (QATAR)

The US president has issued a videotaped appeal to Iran offering a "new beginning" in US-Iranian relations.

"My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties," Barack Obama said in a message distributed on Friday.

The White House distributed the videotape and posted it on its website to coincide with Iranian observance of the Nowruz festival, celebrating the arrival of spring.

Reacting positively to the offer, the press adviser to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, urged Obama to back his words with concrete action to repair what he called past mistakes.

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Thumbs Up for Obama's Turk Visit (TURKEY)

More than half of all Turks have a positive opinion of Barack Obama, marking a stark contrast to their perceptions of his predecessor, George W. Bush, an recent opinion poll has revealed.

Indeed, Obama, who took over the post from Bush on Jan. 20, tops the list of foreign leaders with a healthy approval rating, according to İstanbul-based İnfakto Research Workshop's poll conducted in mid-February, before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Ankara earlier this month, when she announced that Obama will pay one of his first foreign visits in office to Turkey in April. According to the poll's results, 51.6 percent of Turks have a positive opinion of Obama. Popularity rates of the United States or Americans are lower when compared to Obama himself: 25.5 percent of Turks say they have a positive opinion of the United States -- up from 22.9 percent in 2005 -- and 40.8 percent say they view Americans positively, representing a slight improvement from 37.5 percent in 2005.

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Obama versus the Naysayers (TAIWAN)

There are so many disparate views about how to get the United States out of recession that no recovery formula can claim consensus support. Although President Obama has submitted a focused and transparent budget to the Congress, it will take extraordinary political leadership to get it through the partisan battles to come in anything resembling its present form.

Success will become increasingly difficult with each new revelation of outrageous behavior by those giants of finance who brought the world economy to its knees. The latest perfidy is AIG doling out US$165 million in bonuses to executives after taking US$170 billion in government bailout funds. President Obama must bring a halt to this kind of looting, even if that requires exercising the government's power as majority shareholder to take over management of the company. Without such bold action, public outrage will make it politically impossible to rescue the banking system with more infusions of taxpayer money.

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