The world, and our region of it, was expecting a lot around this time at the end of last year. We had been promised a new president in the White House, a historical president by all measures, in terms of skin color, intelligent speech and sincere expression. We had been promised a speech addressed by Barack Obama to the Muslim world, one that would turn the page on Bush’s wars and the language of hatred spread by his provocative discourse. And indeed Obama did not deprive us of it. He stood before the students of Cairo University, reminded us of his Muslim background and called for “a new beginning”. This was supposed to be a gateway to a world that would be more just in terms of relations between strong and weak, more generous in terms of obtaining the rights of victims from their oppressors, and less harsh and brutal in managing its wars, both the internal ones and those which its countries wage beyond their borders. Is not the leader of the most powerful country the one who stretches out his hand to his opponents and invites them to meet him halfway, and in fact shows the willingness to walk towards them even more that this if need be, on the condition that they too relax their “clenched fists”, as Obama referred to them?

Where are we now of all these hopes? It is sufficient to glance at our conflicts, from Palestine to Iraq to Iran and Afghanistan, without forgetting Yemen, which has happily appeared this year on the map of open crises in the region. Such a glance is sufficient to realize how promises have gone in vain, or nearly so, while the speech of goodwill has remained such, a mere speech!

Was the reason for the disappointment the fact that we put more hopes than we should have in Obama being elected? Was it the “surprise” of Obama’s election, as the first black US President, that drove us to consider this to be a gateway to all solutions? Or was it that we thought that America’s revolution against itself would drive it to a revolution against its past policies, so that it would give up its support of Israel in order to please us, then declare its defeat before the forces of “defiance” which struggle within our ranks, and which for a while considered Obama’s victory to be its own victory and the defeat of the US’s imperialist plans?

The year which is coming to an end began with the Israeli war on Gaza. Obama’s excuse for not commenting on Israel’s crimes was that he had not yet assumed the presidency, and that only one president governs the United States and speaks in its name. Yet after being put to the test, it appeared that such a stance had been more an expression of policy than the respect of constitutional principles. Indeed, if the pretexts that were used by Israel to justify the war on Gaza led the Israelis to elect Benjamin Netanyahu, then what took place after this election in terms of confrontations between Obama and Netanyahu have also revealed how powerless the US President is to impose his new policy, if there is anything new about it, on the leaders of the Israeli right-wing.

The disappointment did not lie in Obama alone. One must recognize the disappointment felt by the peoples of the region in finding solutions to their problems and in emerging from their crises. Whether we are speaking of the explosive struggle in the Iranian interior or the rift that seems impossible to resolve within the ranks of the Palestinians, or of the continuing series of bombings and death in the streets of Iraqi cities, despite the fact that US troops have withdrawn from the cities and announced the date of their complete withdrawal, we can say that we are in a region lacking windows of hope in a manner unparalleled throughout the world. These are not crises that need having a new president in the White House or redrawing the maps of international forces. They are crises that need a minimum of national feeling that would strengthen the interior in the face of foreign greed and interests.

Thus we enter a new year with our list of problems identical to what it was last year. The world speaks of a new era, looks for solutions to its crises, and keeps count of what it has achieved at the end of each year and of what it will achieve in the year to come. In our case, on the other hand, our crises only breed further crises. We pay no heed to the world’s changes nor make use of its lessons. It is as if the march of time was destined to stop in our region, while we watch with grief and passion as time marches on for others.

Nevertheless, we wish you a happy new year, with the hope that our list of crises will remain as it is, without any increase, in the coming year.