Tarik Yousef Speaks to BBC Arabic Following U.S. Presidential Inauguration

On January 21, 2009, BBC Arabic interviewed Tarik Yousef on a radio broadcast covering reactions to President Obama’s inauguration speech and expectations for the new administration from the Arab and Muslim world. Yousef is Dean of the Dubai School of Government and Senior Nonresident Fellow at the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings.

Yousef highlighted the importance of the new President’s symbolic changes in rhetoric and discusses the tests that the new administration will face in the region, from the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process to the relationship with Iran. What will beckon the administration first, however, are a pressing set of domestic policy challenges.

An edited English translation of his remarks, along with the original interview in Arabic, is now available here via the Middle East Youth Initiative and Brookings Institution websites.