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“The majority of Lebanese sided with Donald Trump as they believed
that Obama’s Middle East strategy was not fruitful,” Elias Kattar, a
Lebanese political analyst for albaladonline.com, told The Media Line.
“People here felt that Hillary Clinton would have been a copy of Obama
and they would like to see a new strategy implemented in the Middle
East.”
On the other hand, there were those in Lebanon who are
worried about Trump’s statements regarding refugees and Muslims. He said
that on Facebook there is fierce criticism of Trump’s speeches and that
those Lebanese who are concerned about human rights issues would have
preferred to see Clinton as president. “Most Lebanese who live in
the US also voted Trump,” Kattar said. “I saw an American TV program
which interviewed Lebanese and they could not find even a single
Lebanese who wanted to vote for Clinton.”
Regarding US-Russian
relations, Kattar believes that US- Russian cooperation would be
positive, as the war in Syria has been going on for more than 5 years
and we have seen that no one country can resolve the situation there
alone.
But in the end Kattar doesn’t believe that there will be major changes
in policy as “small details may change but on the whole American policy
tends to remain constant regardless of who is president.” The
picture shifts again when it comes to Turkey. President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, who has had 37,000 people arrested and 110,000 people sacked in
a purge following an attempted coup in July, had a close relationship
with President Obama. Trump’s election calls this relationship into
question.
“For the most part the Turkey-US relationship is
expected to remain stable,” stated Marc Pierini, a visiting scholar with
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “There is the airbase
agreement which has been around for a long time. This airbase is a
crucial part of Europe’s defense system.” Pierini is referring to the
Incirlik Air Base which has a U.S. Air Force complement of about five
thousand airmen. Tactical nuclear weapons are stored at this base.
“The
US and NATO provide the essential elements of Turkey’s security and
this is also unlikely to change with a Trump presidency,” he said.
However,
what does remain a question mark is what Trump will do in Syria. Turkey
recently sent troops into Iraq to participate in the recapture of Mosul
from Islamic State. “Turkey also has plans of going into Syria as well
to assist in the takeover of ISIS capital Raqqa. So it is important to
see where Trump is headed on the Syrian question so that Turkey can make
the right decisions.”
“Jordanians have real concerns about Trump’s campaign statements
regarding Arab and Muslims, as well his intention to move the US embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Mohammed Hussainy, Director of the
Identity Center in Amman, told The Media Line. “This is troubling for
Jordanians since Jordan has a special relationship with Jerusalem.”
Jordan,
whose neighbors are Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Israel, is currently in
control of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the Muslim religious authority
that controls the Temple Mount, a Jerusalem site that is holy to both
Jews and Muslims.
Therefore, Jordan is, essentially, the civil administrator of the Temple Mount.
According
to Hussainy, Jordanians favored Hillary Clinton because of her
background working in government and because her policies in the Middle
East were well-known. On the other hand, many fear that Trump does not
really represent the Republican Party, let alone the American people and
are unsure of what the future has in store.
“He said he would
deploy 20 to 30 thousand US troops on the ground to fight Islamic State;
he said he would take a harder stance against Iran; and he said he
would cooperate with the Russians to fight ISIS,” Houssainy said.
“There is a big difference between campaigning and implementation,” Houssainy added.
Jordan, along with the rest of the region, must sit tight as they await the president-elect’s foreign policy agenda.
Many
analysts in the Middle East agree that Israel will benefit most from
this election as Trump has said he will move the U.S. Embassy from Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump also campaigned on a policy of “less
intervention” in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Katie Beiter contributed to this report
