What some in the Arab world are hoping for from a Trump presidency
Even though President-elect Donald Trump was infamous on the campaign trail for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, some Arabs are cheering a Donald Trump win. They're hoping that an increased scrutiny and mistrust of his presidency will shine a light on the harmful and overlooked U.S. foreign policies towards the Middle East.
"None of us really wanted [Hillary] Clinton [to win]," Omar Kamel, one such hopeful, tells The Current's Friday host Duncan McCue.
We don't really see that whoever is President affecting foreign policy that much …No matter what mask they wear, we still get bombed.- Omar Kamel, writer of I'm Arab and Many of Us are Glad that Trump Won
Kamel is an Egyptian video producer and photographer who supports Trump's victory in his article, I'm Arab and Many of Us are Glad that Trump Won.
"Part of it is that a lot of us feel that with Trump getting elected, the U.S. really has to deal with the reality of what it's become."
According to Kamel, there's no substantive difference between the foreign policies of Barack Obama or what he expects to see from Donald Trump — the U.S. continues to support dictators around the world, from President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt or the monarch in Saudi Arabia.
"The U.S. already has around 622 military bases around the world in around 38 countries. It's been acting like an empire since it began, essentially," he says.
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"Trump's Syria policy is misguided and ineffective, but it's really not so much worse than Obama's," Khatib tells McCue.
"So while Syrians are not happy with the election of Trump, it's not like we're sad to see Obama go."
Khatib points to Trump's interest in working with Russia and the Assad regime to fight ISIS in Syria, when neither Russia nor the Syrian military are fighting ISIS right now. They're fighting Syrian rebels.
For Kamal, Trump may be a bad president, but at least he'll be a transparently bad president.
"At least things are going to be laid bare," he tells McCue.
"The other possibility is that countries around the world who are were much less likely to be confrontational with somebody like Obama might, given the face America is now showing the world, might be more likely to be more confrontational with the U.S. over foreign policy."
- Related Link: Envisioning Donald Trump's Middle East
Hussein Banai, an assistant professor at Indiana University, warns people should be careful what they wish for from the new president-elect.
"For me, the most distressing thing is that if we look at his judgment, if we look at his temperament, if we look at his instinct, those are factors that every president ultimately uses to shape his or her legacy," Banai tells McCue.
"And in the case of Trump, we have a complete departure from not just President Obama but from a traditional bipartisan American foreign policy toward the rest of the world."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this web post.
This segment was produced by The Current's Pacinthe Mattar.