Mideast native hears little new in foreign-policy debate

At least one native Egyptian who lives in Phoenix heard Mitt Romney echo President Obama a lot in Monday night’s foreign-policy debate.

Kareem Adawalla said Romney did plenty of criticizing, but in his opinion didn’t bring any new ideas.
“When it comes to [Romney’s] solutions, and his suggestions about how he thinks the best way to have relations abroad, he came up with the same exact way that Obama is doing it now.”

Awadalla said Americans have an opportunity this election to choose a president who would calm tensions in the Middle East.

“I think you should be searching for a president who’s not promising you war, or to kill people,” Awadalla said. “You should be searching for a president that cares to get the Middle Eastern people to understand the essence of the United States.”

According to Awadalla, people in the Middle East are not following this presidential race as closely as they were four years ago. He said that’s partly because people in the region were interested to see who would replace George Bush in 2008.

“The former election people were anticipating, waiting, and checking how it would be,” Awadalla said. “They were hoping for a better future with the United States.”