President Obama and the Islamic World: Introduction

After Barack Obama took office as the new President of the United States, the world expected an innovative approach towards the Islamic world from the new administration. President Obama’s historical speeches in Ankara and Cairo demonstrated a new agenda towards the Islamic world. The language of the U.S. administration radically changed and either a term such as the “global war on terror” was eliminated or terrorism was often replaced by extremism. Indeed, President Obama’s agenda created a great deal of optimism and hope for the U.S.-Muslim relations. The polls illustrated an enormous support for the new U.S. administration in the Islamic World.
However, more than 16 month after taking the office, President Obama is facing rapid decrease in the initial optimism towards his administration approach to the Islamic World. This reduction is vey essential in the U.S.’s foreign and even domestic policy. Outside the borders the United States is involved with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, extremism, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran among many other crucial issues related to the Islamic World. Domestically, the decrease can illustrate the efficacy of his approach to fundamental issues such as closing the Guantanamo prison. Hence, this series of analysis aims to discuss the extent to which the Obama administration was successful with its policy towards the Islamic World by assessing the administration’s approach towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran and the role of the public opinion in applying the policies. Nevertheless, the analysis will be limited as it does not consider the role of other crucial factors such as Iraq and Afghanistan in judging President Obama’s approach towards the Islamic World.