Would An Obama Presidency Really Disappoint The Muslim World?

Mark Krikorian suggests:

Our relations with the Muslim world could well deteriorate substantially under an Obama Administration, precisely because Muslims think he might be symaptico, and when he disappoints them (as he must, both because he is not, in fact, a Muslim and because of the imperatives of American politics), they're going to feel betrayed and the impression of him as an apostate enemy of the ummah will spread and deepen. Even a Jewish president would hold less potential for worsening relations because many, if not most, Muslims already think Jews run the country, and would see the election of a President Lieberman, for instance, as merely cutting out the middleman. I don't see this as an important reason to support or oppose Obama, but the idea that his presidency will usher in a new age of harmony with the Mohammedans is malarkey.

That's sounds about right as far as it goes, but I am not clear on how "the imperatives of American politics" presuppose that the US must inevitably disappoint the Muslim world.

What exactly are these imperatives? The need for oil? The need for Muslim goodwill? These are imperatives too and in some ways are more concrete than that the need to defend "the lone democracy in the Middle East." For that matter, what will become of Israel's US collateral once Iraq comes of age and becomes the second democracy in the Middle East?

Anyway, the US is open to pressure from the Muslim world on the best of days, and under an Obama presidency--especially considering the kinds of advisors that Obama has consistently surrounded himself with--is it so obvious that the US would disappoint the Muslim world?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Obama.