BAQUBA: Iraqis seem divided on who they would like to see as the next US president, but few believe that either will end the occupation.

“The US administration has committed a big mistake in Iraq,” Adil Ibrahim, a local physician in Baquba, capital city of Diyala province, located 40km northeast of Bagdhdad, said. “We hope that whoever wins the election, the new administration can mend the huge mistakes of this one.”

Some wish for Barack Obama to win because he claims to represent a great change in the history of the United States.

“Being a black man, he definitely carries different thoughts about the world,” Ali Hussein, a city employee, said. “We sympathise with him since he has some kind of Muslim origins. He may view Arabs in a new and different way.”

Naser Mahdi, a secondary school teacher, also said: “I feel he is totally different. The world needs new blood in rulers, and we hope that he might decrease the dominating authority of the United States.”

“Because the result of the race affects the lives of Iraqis, I wish that a Democrat could win the round in order to give Iraqis a better future,” schoolteacher Khalid Abid said. “We still hope to be viewed with care and consideration. Things surely must change in Iraq after the elections.”

But Abdulla Hamid, a city resident, expressed deep concern over Obama’s recent speech at the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby in the US.

“What hope is there in a man who wears the Israeli flag and calls for a Jewish state with a unified Jerusalem,” Hamid said. “Obama clearly couldn’t care less about the Palestinians and the Arabs.”

Hamid referred to the fact that Obama appeared at the speech with a lapel pin comprised of both the US and Israeli flags. In his speech, Obama’s call for a unified Jerusalem omitted Palestinians’ demands for their share of Jerusalem, which is a sacred city for them too.

Like most US citizens, most Iraqis are not familiar with US foreign policy. While Obama, the Democratic presidential hopeful, calls for a shift in the US policy in Iraq, neither he nor his Republican rival, John McCain, talk about changing the National Security Strategy of the US, or the military document Joint Vision 2020, which calls for “full spectrum dominance” of the world by the US military by the year 2020.‘Full spectrum dominance’ means not just total control of land, air, and sea, but also of information and of space.

“The US strategy is firm and unchanging,” a political analyst at Diyala University said on condition of anonymity, given widespread fear of US forces. “It makes no difference whether one wins or the other. The general strategy is well established, and is never affected by the changing of the president.”—Dawn/ The IPS News Service