Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January-February 2009, pages 40-41

European Press Review

European Press on What Obama’s Victory Will Mean for Muslims

By Lucy Jones

The Arab world has high hopes for America following the election of Barack Obama as president, said Gerhard Sporl and Bernhard Zand in the Nov. 19 issue of Germany’s Der Spiegel.

“Now a man is about to move into the White House whose father was a Muslim from Kenya and whose middle name is Hussein,” they wrote.

“But if the 44th president of the United States were to believe that he has the unqualified support of Arabs, and that they will be willing to go along with anything he dreams up to solve the region’s raging conflicts, from Palestine to Iraq to Syria, and most of all Iran, he would be cherishing an illusion,” they continued. “Arabs are pleased that Bush is history, and that they will no longer have to endure his sermons about democracy and freedom, and yet they consider Obama, the president of a weakened world power, with fresh ambivalence.”

They pointed out that Obama’s decision to appoint Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Israel Emanuel to the position of White House chief of staff is regarded with suspicion.

“The mistrust is sparked by his father’s biography. The senior Emanuel was a pediatrician and, before the establishment of the State of Israel, a member of Irgun, a militant organization that committed attacks on Palestinian Arabs and the British,” the Der Spiegel writers explained.

Following reports that Obama had picked Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, Leonard Doyle, posited in the Nov. 22 edition of Britain’s Independent that Clinton, together with Emanuel, could “provide Obama with a formidable team  with which to bring pressure to bear on Israel and the Palestinians to achieve an acceptable settlement.”

“[Bill] Clinton’s experience in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to the brink of a peace agreement at Camp David in 2000 should also prove invaluable,” he added.

In the opinion of Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times the next day, “[Hillary] Clinton’s relative hawkishness on Iran will also help Obama. When he opens negotiations, he will have a tough intermediary who will keep Tehran guessing and enable him to retain a certain aloofness. She’d be the bad cop; he’d remain the good one.”

BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds said on Nov. 11 that Obama’s victory means there is the prospect that the Guantanamo Bay camp will close.

“President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has begun the debate about how this might be done—while stressing that no decisions have yet been taken,” he wrote.

“In broad terms, the idea seems to be to abandon the military tribunals authorized under the Military Commissions Act 2006. A trial procedure would be set up within the United States instead,” Reynolds elaborated.

In Italy, uproar followed remarks by Italian politician Maurizio Gasparri that al-Qaeda may welcome Obama’s victory, Corriere della Sera reported on Nov. 6. “There are lots of question marks over Obama. With him in the White House, al-Qaeda could well be happier,” the leader of Italy’s People of Freedom group told the Senate.

Corriere della Sera said Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni responded by saying Obama’s win “will change nothing in the fight against terrorism.” Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Gasparri was wrong because with Obama “the strategy in Afghanistan will be reinforced” and al-Qaeda “will weep bitter tears,” the newspaper reported.

Britain Must Heed Iraq’s Call for a U.K. Withdrawal, Times Concludes

How should Britain respond to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call for British troops to leave Iraq? That was the question posed by the London Times on Oct. 13, after al-Maliki in an interview with the newspaper “came close,” in the opinion of the paper’s editorial writers, to issuing “a formal eviction order.”

Asked how important British troops were for security in the south of the country, al-Maliki said bluntly that at their current strength of 4,100 they were “definitely…no longer necessary.”

“The question is not made easier to answer by Mr. al-Maliki’s strongly worded criticisms of Britain’s record in Basra, never mind his call for a withdrawal,” said The Times.

“Britain must heed his call for a swift resumption of talks to produce a new status of forces agreement that would define clearly how many British Forces are needed in Iraq, and what they should be doing. In these talks, only one thing matters, and it is not British honor or Iraqi self-esteem. It is Iraq’s security,” the newspaper concluded.

Afghanistan’s Best Hope Said to Be For “Controlled Warlordism”

A chilling frontline analysis of why Western troops cannot defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan by veteran correspondent Christina Lamb in the Oct. 12 Sunday Times sparked much debate.

“An aid worker smuggled me security maps compiled by the United Nations (no longer made public because they reveal just how bad things are),” wrote Lamb. “These show the relentless sweep from Helmand and the south across the country of pink, which represents ‘uncontrolled hostile environment’—no-go areas. In 2005…there was not a single pink patch; today more than half the country is pink.

“Violent incidents have gone up from 44 a month in 2003 to 573 this year, and more than 4,500 people have been killed this year. In June and July the Americans lost more troops in Afghanistan than Iraq,” she continued.

“Most alarming is the way Kabul has been encircled by the Taliban, prompting a sense of being under siege both among Afghans and foreigners, behind their concrete blocks and armed guards,” she said.

Responding to Lamb in the Oct. 19 issue of same newspaper, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the Afghanistan mission “is certainly not impossible.”

“People sometimes ask how we expect to succeed when the Soviet Union failed with 200,000 troops in the 1980s. My answer is that we are not seeking to emulate the Soviet Union. We are not seeking to establish a colony or subjugate the will of the people,” wrote Miliband.

“Our cause is simple: to help Afghanistan make itself safe from the Taliban and, in the process, to make ourselves safer from al-Qaeda. That requires enormous heroism from Afghans and their international partners. Yes, it is difficult,” he acknowledged. “But it is not impossible.”

Writing in the Oct. 13 edition of The Guardian, Max Hastings thought Afghanistan’s best hope is for “controlled warlordism, not conventional democracy.…A civil war may prove an essential preliminary before some crude equilibrium between factions can be achieved,” he added. “If this sounds a wretched prognosis, it is hard to find informed Westerners with higher expectations.”

Danish Mohammed Cartoonist Ready With New Drawings

Kurt Westergaard, the Danish caricaturist forced into hiding after his 2005 depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, is set to return with a new set of potentially controversial drawings, according to the Nov. 11 Copenhagen Post.

Westergaard, whose drawing of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban sparked protests worldwide, will release another set of provocative cartoons as part of a new book by historian Lars Hedegaard.

One of the cartoons pictures former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, who took a stance against the original Mohammed cartoons, kneeling with an inkwell that reads “freedom of expression.” A black-bearded man with a bomb in his turban is peeking out from the inkwell.

French Court Overturns Annulment Of Muslim Couple’s Marriage

A marriage in France between a Muslim couple, which was annulled in April because the bride was not a virgin, is now back on after an appeals court overturned the ruling on Nov. 17, Libération reported the following day. The couple married in 2006, but on their wedding night it was discovered the bride was not a virgin. The groom sent his wife home the same evening, took the issue to court to get the marriage annulled, and won. According to French law, a marriage can be annulled if it is proven that there has been a lie about an “essential quality.” A court in the French city of Lille decided virginity was indeed an “essential quality,” but an appeals court disagreed.

“In other words,” said Libération, “the cancellation has been cancelled. Neither the husband nor the wife want to stay married,” it added, “so now they’ll have to simply get a divorce.”

American Becomes First Woman to Lead a Mixed Islamic Prayer in Britain

An American female professor became the first woman to lead a mixed congregation in Islamic prayer in Britain on Oct. 17, the BBC reported the same day.

Amina Wadud gave a Friday sermon at the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, while a small protest took place outside the building.

In March 2005, Professor Wadud held Friday prayers to a mixed congregation in New York, also sparking protests.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.

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