Obama could change dynamics in the Arab world

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CAIRO, Nov 16 (AP): Despising America has long been a Middle East pastime, but then the country that brought war to Iraq and orange-suited prisoners to Guantanamo Bay elected a Facebook-friendly president who speaks in poems.
What's a mullah to do?
Eight years of President Bush gave conservative Muslims a buttress against America. But Obama, who plays as well in Hollywood as he does in the villages of Kenya, is changing Washington's image from a cowboy with snarling sound bites to a conciliator with star appeal.
The Middle East probably won't put aside its mistrust of Washington over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and regional flash points, including Iran's nuclear program. The early elation in the Arab media over Obama's victory was later balanced with the belief that the president-elect is encumbered by entrenched U.S. policies, and that what looms before the world is a new face, one with international sensibilities, yet ultimately one that will act in American interests.
But Obama's is a multicultural face that narrows degrees of separation. He is the Christian son of a Muslim father; he seems more a citizen of the world than an Illinois senator. To many in the Middle East, he is that rare thing: a minority who, with breathtaking speed and without a military coup, has risen to political prominence.