A letter to Barack


Dear Mr Obama,

Over the next few weeks, lots of people will be asking what you intend to do about the Middle East. Please don't rush to give them an answer, and don't assume that you really must do something – at least not until you're sure it won't make matters worse. That's one obvious lesson from the Bush years.

If you're looking for good advice, don't have dinner with Bernard Lewis or those guys from the American Enterprise Institute. There are plenty of other thinktanks, and experts in American universities, even the state department. Which ones to listen to? Well, if they're regulars on Fox News or in the Weekly Standard, you can forget about them. For the others, check out what they have been saying over the last 10 years – and decide for yourself how much (or how little) they got right.

If anyone sends you a copy of The Arab Mind (a favourite with the US military) or Natan Sharansky's dreadful book on democracy (Mr Bush's favourite), as I'm sure they will, give it to your daughters' new puppy to play with. Send a thank-you note and let them know what fun he's had tearing it apart.

You have inherited problems – Iraq and Palestine among them – that you'll have to deal with as best you can, but you also need a few guiding principles. George Bush was not actually wrong with his "strategy of freedom" for the Middle East. It's just that in his usual cackhanded way he got it all muddled and back to front.

He thought it would be easy because of America's military might, and we all know the result. He thought it was just a problem of tyrants and terrorists but it's a lot more complicated than that.

Another lesson from the Bush years is don't take on too much and if in doubt, hold back. The US can be a facilitator for freedom, but it should not try to be the deliverer as well. Provide help where it's wanted but remember that in the end the people of the Middle East will have to find their own solutions.

President Bush also confused freedom with democracy, and I trust you already know they are not quite the same thing. Unless there's a climate where people can speak their minds, exchange ideas and practise their politics, free elections don't achieve much. By all means encourage democracy but if you're going to complain when people you don't like get elected, you might as well not bother.

In fact, people in the Arab countries don't complain much about a lack of democracy. If you mention it to them, they often make jokes about Florida 2000 and hanging chads. What they do complain about – a lot – is corruption, the lack of transparent and accountable government, courts that make arbitrary judgments without properly considering the evidence and all the other obstacles that prevent them from doing the things they want.

These are areas where the US can use its influence, but be careful how you do it. It's all very well to freeze the assets of corrupt businessmen who make use of their political connections, as George Bush did with President Assad's cousin, Rami Makhlouf. Unfortunately, Bush didn't do that because he's against corruption; he did it to attack the Syrian regime, and nobody in the Middle East took it seriously. How many businessmen in "friendly" countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have had their assets frozen because of corruption? None. If you want to go down that route you have to be even-handed about it.

It is easy to pin the blame for the Middle East's ills – as President Bush usually did – on Arab governments, especially in a region dominated by hidebound regimes that have been in power for decades and whose tentative steps towards reform are directed mainly at their own self-preservation.

Yes, the regimes are a problem but political reform, on its own, is not the answer. The region needs social, religious and economic reform too. Take human rights for example. We all know there are regimes that imprison people unjustly and torture them but most of the abuses in the Middle East – at least in terms of the numbers affected and their impact on everyday life – are inflicted by ordinary people upon each other. Whether it's based on ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality or family background, discrimination is rife almost everywhere.

Equal rights, civil rights, freedom of expression – these are areas that you should focus on, because achieving those rights will unlock other processes that can move the region forward.

Changes are already happening to some extent. Thanks to satellite television and the internet there's more openness than there was, and you can help it along. But, again, be careful how you do it. America's reputation has become so tarnished that giving your support to local activists and popular opposition movements can easily discredit them in the eyes of their peers. So the first thing you have to do is set an example and start rebuilding America's image abroad. Among other things, that means no more invasions, no more Guantánamos, no more Abu Ghraibs.

In fact, though you may not yet realise it, you have already made a start. By getting elected, as an African-American, you have sent a powerful message to people in all those countries where such things seem impossible. Could a Kurd ever become president of Syria, or a Christian president of Egypt? It looks impossible now, but you have planted an idea. If America, as you said in your victory speech, is "a place where all things are possible", why not the Middle East too?