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"I think generally these groups welcome Obama over John McCain for many obvious reasons," said Paul Salem, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Centre. "The way he approaches the Arab world, the Muslim world, is much more friendly although at the same time they realize that Obama has a very pro-Israeli position. "Just the fact that he won't be as hostile, as aggressive on all the issues
is certainly a bit of oxygen and opens up possibilities for progress," Salem added. He noted that the rhetoric of radical, militant Islamist groups such as Al-Qaeda could also meet with less sympathetic ears in the light of Obama's victory. "Many normal, regular people in the Arab and Muslim world, and some Islamists as well as radical Islamists, probably would be less hostile to somebody called Barack Hussein Obama, whose father is from Kenya, who is dark-skinned, whom they cannot immediately label as the white colonialist or the Christian crusader," he said.
Although Obama had made overhauling US foreign policy a cornerstone of his election campaign, he is not likely to stray much from the policy lines adopted by previous American presidents as concerns the Middle East. Still, analysts say, he is expected to adopt a softer approach to thorny issues such as Iran's nuclear programme or relations with Syria, which should put him on a better footing in the region than outgoing President George W. Bush. "I think he is perceived by Hezbollah as the lesser of two evils and as someone who will not wage war on Iran," said Rafiq Khoury, editor of the independent Lebanese daily Al-Anwar, referring to the Shiite Lebanese militant group backed by Iran and considered a terrorist organisation by Washington. "Hezbollah's key concern is that no military strike be ordered on Iran, which is their main supporter," he added.
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a political science professor at Lebanese American University and an expert on Hezbollah, said militant groups in the Middle East also view Obama's election as a "temporary reprieve" from Bush's military adventures in the region, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan, and his
heavy-handed intervention. "Even if it's mainly a stylistic change or a tactical change on the part of the new US administration, they still see it as significant," she said. "But neither Hamas, nor Hezbollah nor any Islamist groups are going to delude themselves into thinking the US has reinvented itself now as a peace maker." Nawaf Moussawi, Hezbollah's international relations officer, said his group had not placed its hopes in Obama as Bush's Middle East policies were doomed anyway. "The Bush policy, from Iraq to Lebanon, to Syria and Palestine as well as other regions was a failure," Moussawi said. "The resistance (movements in the region) imposed the change in America because if the Bush plans for the Middle East had been successful we wouldn't have seen any change in Washington."
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