Doaa El-Bey and Rasha Saad on why few people believe the official version of the death of a young Alexandrian and why Obama's relationship with the Middle East has gone sour Pundits focussed on the challenges ahead of US President Barack Obama in the Middle East. In the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashid described Obama as probably "the least fortunate US president." In 'Obama's problems: from one Gulf to the next' Al-Rashid wrote that Obama "is up to his ears in tumultuous problems that are threatening his presidency although he has not yet completed half of his four-year term in office." Al-Rashid acknowledges that as soon as he assumed the presidency, Obama inherited the most serious financial crisis in US history and three major wars -- Iraq, Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda. To rub salt into the wound, Al-Rashid adds, the president is facing a crisis in the waters of the Arabian Gulf and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico where the biggest environmental pollution in the history of the US is unfolding. "The broken oil pipeline has become more dangerous to Obama than Iranian nuclear reactors," Al-Rashid wrote. Obama's fortune in the Middle East is not better. "In the Middle East, where love does not last long, Obama lost many supporters through his inability to push the peace plan forward," Al-Rashid argued. "We do not know whether it is Obama's domestic preoccupations or his excessively soft style of dealing with countries in the region that are behind his failures in our part of the world. But people usually do not care about reasons. They look for results and these do not amount to much," Al-Rashid wrote. The Qatari Al-Sharq wrote in an editorial entitled 'The US and Afghan quagmire' that "US and international troops in Afghanistan are sinking very deep in the Afghan quagmire." The editorial cites the recent statements of CIA chief Leon Panetta that "we are making progress. It's harder, it's slower than I think anyone anticipated" as well as recent reports that the death toll in June was the highest during the past eight years as an example of the depth of the crisis. The editorial also referred to the fact that General Stanley McChrystal was relieved of his command following an interview given to Rolling Stone magazine in which he sharply criticised Obama's strategy in Afghanistan as "the sour harvest of the US and international troops." "These troops came to Afghanistan eight years ago to capture Osama Bin Laden and the other senior leaders of Al-Qaeda and uproot Taliban fighters. It neither hunted Bin Laden down nor uprooted the Taliban," Al-Sharq wrote. The editorial quoted Panetta as saying that the US had not received any significant intelligence on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts for years, believing he was in "very deep hiding". "The presence of American and international troops in Afghanistan should be reconsidered. They [international powers] should stop deceiving the world with chapters of a silly play that claims the hunting of so-called terrorists and terrorism," Al-Sharq concluded. The United Arab Emirates daily Al-Bayan wrote that the rejection of the Israeli siege of Gaza by the G8 during their summit in Canada was no more than a face-saver. The editorial quoted the G8 final statement as stating that the Israeli siege should not continue in its current form and that more aid should reach its Palestinian inhabitants. "The final statement was issued void of demands to lift the siege or condemn the attack on the Freedom flotilla. It only "deeply regreted" the loss of life that occurred when Israeli commandos raided the flotilla, killing nine pro- Palestinian activists," the editorial said. The Omani Al-Watan reminded the world that there are 1.5 million people besieged in Gaza for four years. Over 7,000 prisoners are in Israeli jails, 1,500 of whom have serious health risks and are deprived of treatment. Al-Watan wrote in its editorial that all of them are suffering for the sake of the freedom of one Israeli soldier. "Palestinians are demanding that only 1,000 prisoners be freed in return. But still Israel refuses and insists on punishing all Palestinians in violation of human rights laws. Isn't this inhuman situation enough for the international community to pay special attention to the Palestinians?" Al-Watan wrote. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Adel Al-Toraifi wrote "On the crisis of governance in Baghdad" after hundreds of Iraqis came out to protest against the provincial council last week due to the heightened power shortages in Basra. Matters escalated and Iraqi security officers fired live ammunition at demonstrators who were throwing stones at them. One person was killed and two others injured. "What is striking in this incident is that peaceful citizens were killed not by bullets fired by terrorists or the occupation forces but by government bullets at a time when the country has not been able to extricate itself from a political labyrinth to learn who will be the country's next prime minister," Al-Toraifi wrote. Al-Toraifi points out that the problem of the legitimacy of governance is not specific to Iraq "as most regional countries are suffering from this historical crisis." The problem, according to Al-Toraifi, is that the Iraqi people are being asked to deal with this issue now before others. "Today, with the Americans confirming their intention to leave Iraq at the end of next year, it will be up to the Iraqis to prove that they are capable of solving their problems in a manner that does not harm the entire state project," Al-Toraifi wrote. According to Al-Toraifi, Iraq is not in need of a strong prime minister, or for the central government to enjoy greater powers "but rather the important lesson that must be learned from the Basra incident, and many others, is that the central government's ability to control a multi-ethnic and multi-sect country like Iraq is fraught with failure." Therefore, Al-Toraifi explains, the solution is to give the governorates more power to govern and rule so that each governorate or province is responsible for its own services and affairs. Al-Toraifi fears that the more the role of the central government is limited to sovereign function, the more the conflict over who has the right to govern the country will diminish, "because this governance -- in its diluted form -- is one whose duties do not exceed directing work and achieving consensus, rather than intervention in sectarian and local party disputes."
