Why Most Arabs Ignore the US Presidential Election

For a region that impacts so much on US foreign policy and aspects of domestic well-being, the Middle East is surprisingly uninterested in the American presidential election. This is because most Middle Easterners see no difference between John Kerry and George W. Bush on the key issues that matter to them, mainly Palestine-Israel and Iraq.

Several major Middle East matters should warrant much greater interest among the American public and the political contenders, including: the American occupation and war in Iraq; the recent years of terror attacks against the US by handfuls of Arabs and Asians, followed by the American-led "war on terror" and the expanding American military intervention throughout this region; the indigenous violence inside Saudi Arabia, potential threats to oil production in some Arab states, and vulnerable US and global energy supplies; persistent and now rising tensions between the US and such Middle Eastern actors as Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and some Palestinian groups; and, continuing Israeli-Palestinian warfare and its ripple effect throughout the Arab-Asian region, where criticism of Washington's Mideast policies remains intense.

Debate on these issues in the US remains superficial, and Arab interest in the election equally so. This reflects a deeper problem and trend: the relationship between the United States and most people in the Arab world has become so badly skewed - with American and Israeli power tactics driving and defining American-Arab interaction - that the US is seen at best as a lost cause in most of the Middle East, and at worst as an enemy combatant.

The two main US presidential candidates' views on Mideast issues reveal no deep differences, other than in tone and emphasis. Consequently, the average Arab or Middle Eastern person following the US presidential campaigns hears four distinct messages from Kerry and Bush:

1. The issues of the Middle East as a whole are of low concern to the United States, and are only to be addressed through the prism of American needs rather than the mutual rights of Middle Easterners and Americans. (Washington's China, Korea or Russia policies are not formulated so one-sidedly, but its Mideast policies are.)

2. Israelis have greater national and personal rights, and higher priority attention, than Palestinians and other Arabs; the suffering of Israelis is much greater than the suffering of Palestinians; and the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat are to blame for the lack of progress on a negotiated peace accord. This is why Washington has basically gone along with virtually every major policy advocated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, including building the separation barrier, rejecting the World Court ruling on it, expanding settlements and retaining the major ones permanently, withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza, assassinating Palestinian militants, and refusing to talk to Arafat.

3. The United States will continue to use its power to dictate policies to Middle Eastern governments and political groups, and will threaten or change regimes as deemed appropriate, regardless of international law, global public opinion, or the rights or wishes of the people of the Middle East themselves.

4. The prism through which the US makes Mideast policy is exclusively the "war on terror," which bolsters autocratic Arab regimes that market themselves successfully to the current American military mindset.

Most Middle Easterners, on the other hand, judge US behavior in this region largely through the lens of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Washington's severe and worsening tilt toward Israel helps explain why the US has had such a hard time winning public support on other key regional issues, including Iraq and reform. No wonder, therefore, that most Middle Easterners dismiss the American presidential race as meaningless or even harmful to them, while Israel is one of the few countries in the world where public opinion prefers a Bush victory.

Mass public Arab disinterest in the US presidential campaign's Mideast angles is very dangerous for all concerned. It leads directly toward a quiet, passive radicalization of mass public sentiments here. It gradually erodes meaningful diplomatic or political interaction between Arabs and Americans, and ultimately feeds the current widening violent cycle of occupation, resistance, terror and counter-terror warfare, including bombings, assassinations, beheadings and extremist rhetoric throughout the Middle East.

As Arab leaders steadily lose legitimacy and trust in the eyes of their own people, and the United States eliminates itself as a credible external partner for Arab-Israeli negotiations and other regional challenges, a disillusioned Arab public looks elsewhere for solace, redemption and hope. It even looks in desperation to demagogues and militants, like Saddam Hussein who struck a deep chord of approval among disillusioned Arab masses when he defied the US, the UN and virtually the whole world; or to killers like Osama bin Laden or former nobodies like Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq.

Arab leaderships and societies are also to blame. It is shocking that no known Arab party has attempted to engage the next Bush or Kerry administration on the issues that matter to Arabs. Most Arab regimes, increasingly isolated and vulnerable among their own people, and taken for granted or summarily dismissed by the US, are politically immobilized. They cannot influence the US in any way because they have largely become its dependent wards. They cannot even articulate a simple list of priority issues that the US and the Arabs together should focus on immediately after the November election.

Arab public disinterest in the US election is matched by Arab official powerlessness. Combined with the blatant official American tilt toward Israel, and widespread American disdain for most Arab regimes and even societies, we have the makings of an ugly shared environment that will trouble us all for years to come.