The American nation is about to elect the next president of the United States, choosing between the current Democratic President Barack Obama and his Republican competitor Mitt Romney. One of them will become tomorrow the newxt White House occupant for the next four-year presidential mandate.
To Arabs is quite important how the future president of the U.S. would approach the Middle Eastern ongoing uproar, particularly the 20-month long Syrian crisis and the ongoing sanctions towards Iran.
During the last debate before the presidential race over the nation’s foreign policy at Lynn University in Florida, Romney and Obama wordily attacked each other on different experience and vision. Romney claimed that Obama is transferring all the responsibility to the United Nations.
However, opinions differ. Gamal Soltan, former director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, paid tribute to Obama and his skill in US international relationship management by expressing an opinion that the current US president constructs his foreign policy on concepts of collectivism and international consensus. He added that Romney, on the other hand, still speaks about hegemony and power and his politics are aimed into identifying certain Syrian parties. On the contrary, Obama doesn’t share the same beliefs on the matter. He thinks that US foreign policy should not be so hasty and arm the Syrian rebels.
Elsewhere, the Times reported that Iranian officials had agreed to a direct debate between US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program after years of secret correspondence. The media report adds that Iran asked that the meeting to be held after the election of the next US president, when it will be certain who the president is.
In respond to this, Romney said in an article for The Wall Street Journal, that the US seems to be “at the mercy of events rather than shaping them. We’re not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies.” Such an opinion is quite surprising at present, as the U.S. policy makers have put a lot of efforts during the past decade to soften the approach towards Arab and Middle Eastern issues, in general. However, Romney claims that both USA and Israel would be in great danger if Iran could lay hands on nuclear weapons.
During the Florida debate, Romney said that he would do his best that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would answer before the Genocide Convention. We should also be aware that Tehran is “four years closer to a nuclear weapon” and Obama is responsible, because he has “wasted” this period without putting stronger economic sanctions on this wealthy country.
In an answer to these harsh statements, Obama pointed out that this diplomatic approach to the issue of Iran in addition to tough economic sanctions has been effective so far. The result can be seen as a statistic for the country’s oil production, which has reached its lowest level in 20 years. Sanctions need a certain amount of time to take effect and applying military force is nor the easiest, neither the most correct political strategy. Obama also promised that Iran will not succeed in getting a nuclear weapons during his duty.
As a conclusion to these statements, Mustafa Elwi political science professor at Cairo University said: “We should not get tricked by the words of both candidates; both are trying to avoid discussion of a military strike against Iran”.
However, it seems the United States politicians still consider interference in other’s countries policies a big part of their immediate duties, unlike politicians from across the world.
