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ISTANBUL - Could a new president in the United States mean fresh relations between Middle Eastern countries and the U.S.?
Some locals say change may bring hope to the region, others say that change might not be good.
But almost everyone VOA spoke with in recent days said that after decades of frustration with U.S. policy, they are rooting for new policies in America, not individual leaders.
"I'm happy with whoever is better for Egypt," said Abdulrahman Abdelfattah, 28, a SCUBA dive guide in an Egyptian resort town several days after the election. "We have tried [U.S. President Donald] Trump, but we haven't tried [President-elect] Joe Biden yet. We will find out who is better."
What is good for the Middle East?
Christopher Ibrahim, a 32-year-old jazz musician in Beirut, Lebanon, was happy with the results of the U.S. elections. His mother is Armenian from Syria and his father is Palestinian. He spent his childhood in New Jersey in the U.S.
Ibrahim voted for Biden, mostly because he says Trump has support from white supremacist groups. He said he thinks Biden is the right choice for America, but, he added, maybe not for the Middle East.
"Ironically, I think that Trump's policies in the long run would somehow be better [for the Middle East]," he said. "Because they were sort of forcing everyone to take steps...towards each other."
Ibrahim was referring to the Trump-brokered normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Bahrain. It was an achievement lauded by some and blasted by others. It also was a significant change in a situation that has been deadlocked for decades.
Humanitarian hopes
In Yemen, the Trump administration has supported Saudi Arabia-led attacks on the Houthis, a militant group that took over much of the country in 2014 and 2015, now formally known as Ansar Allah. The Trump Administration says U.S. support for Saudi Arabia tempers civilian destruction, a point disputed by many in the U.S., including Biden.
Mohamad Salah, a 47-year-old English teacher in the capital, Sana'a, said he was surprised by the U.S. election results, but also hopeful.
Yemen has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis over the past few years, and to him, it doesn't appear that U.S. policy has done anything to stop it. Millions of people are starving and more than 100,000 are dead from a war that has also brought on a barrage of diseases and poverty, setting the country's economy back decades, according to the United Nations.
Salah wondered out loud if a new U.S. president could stop the war, allowing more international aid to come in. He concluded that even after all of this suffering, he still hopes so.
"I think Biden might change lives in Yemen, if he wants to," said Salah. "If he knows how hard and terrible the situation is, he might do something."
Years of frustration
But in Cairo, Abdo al-Masry, a 59-year-old sculptor and father of six, said that for people in the Middle East, the recent elections are inconsequential.
U.S. relations in the Middle East are strictly transactional, he said, asserting that for decades the U.S. has been conducting wars in the region for oil profits.
His statements may be debatable, but no one argues the fact that this belief is widely held in the Middle East.
"I only care about one thing," al-Masry said in his sculptor's workshop in Cairo. "Egypt must be strong. Power is the only language that can stop any of these people."
Renewed alliances?
Others in the Middle East are equally frustrated with U.S. policies, but for different reasons.
In a crowded outdoor café in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, 50-year-old Ali Alwane said the U.S. has backed the Kurds many times in the past decades, but it has also left them woefully stranded in the face of deadly assaults.
U.S. policy can impact every corner of the world, but, he said, recently those policies have left Kurds to fend for themselves after they fought on the front lines against Islamic State militants for years.
"My people died defending the whole world against IS," he said. "But America did not even say anything when we were attacked. How can I depend on such a country?"
Alwane blames the U.S. in general, not Trump specifically, though he added he's hopeful the next four years will be better.
"What matters to me is who will support us," he said. "That's what I need from America."
Halan Akoiy contributed from Iraq, Ali Khedr from Lebanon, Hamada Elrasam from Egypt. VOA withheld the name of its Yemen contributor for this story for security reasons.