So how does the election of Barack Obama look to people outside the United States — particularly, how does it look to a young Iranian living in Iran? In this Guest Voice post, Iranian freelance writer and blogger Kourosh Ziabari looks at how the U.S was perceived in some parts of the world under President George Bush and what Obama’s election could mean. TMV runs Guest Voice posts of various viewpoints. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.

The Change The Americans Did

by Kourosh Ziabari

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

Among the noisy hollers of the jubilant, excited swarm in Chicago gathered to celebrate the official announcement of President-elect Barack Obama’s victory over old-hand Sen. John McCain after the 21 month 2008 US Presidential election campaign, yells of “Yes, we can” by the excited, hopeful Americans raised the expectations for a defining four years under a moderate 47-year old who is said to be going to alleviate the flames of hostility and animosity blazed by President Bush worldwide. Bush was seen by many as a warmonger.

Almost everyday during the past 8 years while Republican George Walker Bush held office in the White House, you could probably hear up-to-date, breaking news regarding a raid by the US Air Forces or military troops on diverse parts of the world, one after another. The sacrificed victims included Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq who experienced the catastrophic situation of their territorial integrity being violated, while the others such as Belarus, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran underwent the worst types of soft-strikes: financial embargo and psychological war.

Perhaps, that was the impact of Bush’s foreign policy to cut the mutual ties off with the entire world – except Western Europe. Some believe this was to meet Israel’s ambitions and accomplish an ideological mission to expand global Judaism. Whatever the mission, it cost the White House and the nation of America a lot…

In the other words, US government hurt its relations with bunches of countries rashly, under the incumbency of President Bush; countries which he assumed were tiny, terrorist, unimportant or hostile. Meanwhile, he boosted connections with a small number of countries including UK, France, Germany and Israel as major allies to continue preserving what some considered to be the tyrannical stance of USA toward the rest of world.

The inimical posture toward the under-developing countries that make up about two thirds of world population’s, allowed the White House to take any military or financial measure against them whenever it considered it “necessary”, especially involving countries with Muslim majorities.That caused outrages and hatred against US among masses of people and led the country to be seen as a despotic tyranny in an age of freedom and democracy.

The public objections and irritations surged around Bush and his aides when the US outlandishly vetoed a UNSC resolution against Israel in November 2006 which had demanded the Jewish state to cease the slaughter of Palestinian women and children in Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, it imposed three rounds of strict sanctions against Iran to enforce Tehran suspend its enrichment of Uranium and relinquish the nuclear program which the IAEA 12 times said showed no proof or evidence of “deviation”.

Although the American media have known that Iran is facing an electricity shortage because of its high amount of exports, they conducted a boisterous and grim propaganda against Iran during the past 3 years and particularly intensified their strikes after the election of President Ahmadinejad who was reluctant toward the west and encouraged Iran to get closer to China and Russia than before.

Offensive and insulting language about Iran’s people, calling Iranian officials immoral terms, sticking the label of “terrorist” to the 70 million nation of Iran, perpetually, fabricating and distorting facts about the Persian cultural heritage and history, forging news and current events etc. were all the propaganda tactics that intercontinental media corporations used in an unprecedented alliance to prevent the emergence of a new superpower in Asia.

Thousands of international competitions, festivals, exhibitions and important events in the fields of sport, culture, politics, economy and science were toke place in Iran in the last 3 years, but neither FoxNews, nor BBC, nor CNN, nor AP, nor NY Times, nor Washington Post, nor EuroNews, nor France Press, nor FT Times, nor LA Times, nor PBS, nor ABC and in one word, none of the mainstream media spoke even a word about them and that showed clearly that how truthful they were towards Iran.

However, the major media companies such as News Corporation and Time Warner who always present themselves as independent and non-aligned to governments, began softening their approach toward Iran right after President-elect Obama’s victory was publicized.

The first step was to moderate the critical commentaries on President Ahmadinejad by praising him for the unprecedented congratulations letter to President-elect Obama on the advent of his victory.

Meanwhile, no one can anticipate the next steps and actions that the “decisive media” will take towards Iran, now that an unpredictable Democratic Senator is going to undertake the presidency of US.

But actually, it was evident from Sen. Obama’s first comments that a fundamental change of US policy toward Iran would be underway if he took office.

Also you would easily infer from the American people that they have not been satisfied with the antagonistic rhetoric of their statesmen about Iran during the last years too, because they believe Iranians are not totally comparable with Afghans, Arabs or other tribes in the region because of a 15,000 years civilization as their rich cultural backbone; maybe Iran was an effective factor that led to the historic triumph of Obama over his rival. Actually McCain was not the person who has been defeated; instead, the scope of Republicans’ notorious ideas was the main reason for their failure.

However, now that the “first black” is going to occupy the oval room of White House, everybody is waiting to observe an apparent transformation in the US foreign policy which should be free of what some in the world consider to be terror, genocide, mass killings and a
bullying stance.

Iranians comprise a major community in US where there are lots of Iranian-American half-blooded citizens and of course they would be among the main catalysts that force the cabinet of President Obama to apply some basic “metamorphosis” in his performance, rhetoric and approach toward Iran. Now nobody is expecting to hear the detailed news about the renewal of ineffective and ridiculous sanctions, or some threats about a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities….

Honestly, the era of sanctions and armed interventions has expired, specially about Iran which is the world’s 8th largest military power (According to CIA FactBook 2008) and wouldn’t be frightened by some psychological war of words by American statesmen.

Citizens, media, analysts, peace activists and international observers are now waiting for a constructive engagement between Iran and US particularly after some three rounds of negotiations between the two sides at the ambassadors level in Iraq –which was an indicator of the great potential of both countries to participate and to cooperate.

Among many other things, Kourosh Ziabari has appeared on the BBC outlook program and is a member of Stony Brook University Publications editorial board. His writings have been translated into Italian, German , Arabic, Spanish and Bulgarian and have been published on several websites and online magazines.