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Wednesday, April 7, 2010 as of 11:14 AM ET

Middle East

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Obama Needs His Mideast Groove Back

June 22, 2010 - 1:05 PM | by: Reena Ninan

One year ago, President Barack Obama traveled to Cairo and gave a major foreign-policy speech–addressing  worries in the Muslim world that the U.S. was neglecting their concerns.  Arab analysts widely  judged Obama’s efforts to have been successful, effectively hitting the reset button on U.S-Arab relations.

I was in Cairo for the speech and I remember  the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo telling me before the speech: “If he fails to deliver anything, the Arab world will turn on him.”

A new study by the Pew Center suggests that the Islamist’s prediction is coming true.

In Egypt, America’s favorability rating has dropped from 27% in 2009 to 17% this year.

Turkey and Pakistan tied with Egypt as having the  lowest opinion of  the U.S and President Obama with 17%.

According to the Pew Research Center, “While views of Obama are still more positive than were attitudes toward President Bush among most Muslim publics, significant percentages continue to worry that the U.S. could become a military threat to their country.”