In that sense, they may be getting help from Obama’s supporters, who may have promised too much about his appeal to the Islamic world. Before and after Obama took office, some foreign policy realists said that his election, all by itself, would smooth over relations between America and the “Arab street.” Said former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in February 2009: “I do think that with the election of President Obama, there are many changes that are out there and a different image of the United States.” In his first week in office, Obama announced a schedule for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. In June, he gave an address to Muslims in Cairo that was acclaimed by all the right people.
But did this do anything for non-American Muslims or for Americans themselves? The 2009 Arab Opinion Poll, conducted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, showed Obama single-handedly spiking Muslim optimism about American foreign policy up to 51 percent. In the 2010 poll, it fell back to a Bush-level 16 percent. The Obama magic fell flat here, too: In February 2010, a poll for the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies found 53 percent of Americans viewing Islam unfavorably.
The bad feelings weren’t all Obama’s fault. They were the result of reality crashing in, of foreign policy remaining a mess. But they’re like the bitterness that Americans feel about the 2009 economic stimulus, which was oversold and has become politically toxic because its success is hard to measure. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the promise of the Cordoba Initiative, the group involved in the planned mosque for Lower Manhattan, is easy for conservatives and Republicans to deride. When Americans are asked to look past their initial reactions and back the building of the mosque because it will send a good message, they’re being asked to believe in a new kind of hope and change.
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