Foreign Policy‘s bloggers offer four suggestions for Obama’s first weeks in office. Understandably, they center around how he will deal with the Middle East in a coherent, productive, and—most of all—different way:
1. Give the order to begin drawing down forces in Iraq.
2. Talk to the Muslim world…and listen.
3. Engage on Gaza right away.
4. See the whole, not the parts.
On #2, for example,
The enormous excitement about Obama’s election throughout the Muslim world has been palpably eroded by Gaza. He should try to recapture that sense of hope and possibility by engaging from the outset with a world desperate for a change from the Bush administration. He should lay out a vision of America’s relations with the Islamic world, as he is so uniquely qualified to do. But engagement doesn’t just mean talking—it means listening, learning, and treating others with respect rather than simply as objects to be manipulated.
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