IT is narrated that a king appointed in his office a minister who is wise and trusts that everything that God decides for a person is good. One day, the minister accompanied him for a hunting trip. Whenever the king succeeded in hitting the target, the minister said, “Perhaps it is a blessing”.

On their way, the king fell into a deep hole and started to bleed, so they went to a doctor who ordered the amputation of one of his fingers. The minister commented, “Perhaps it is a blessing”. The king was angry and refused to respond to the doctor, but the bleeding did not stop, so he underwent the amputation. Again the minister said, “Perhaps it is a blessing”.

The king then asked the minister, “What is the good in this? Do you wish to have a finger amputated from one of my hands?”

He then ordered his guards to put the minister in prison, but the latter kept repeating, “Maybe it is a blessing”.

On another day, the king went out for hunting alone, and he fell in the hands of a group of idol worshipers. They captured him in order to give him an offering to their idol, but when they showed him to their leader, his amputated finger was discovered. The leader therefore ordered to let him free and return him to where he came from, because the offering must be valid without a reason.

The king returned to his palace, rejoicing that he had miraculously escaped death, and he then asked the guards to bring the minister. The king told him what happened, and he apologized to him.

The king then asked the minister why he keeps saying “Maybe it is a blessing”. The minister replied, “If you did not lock me up, you would have taken me with you to the hunt. Since my body is healthy without a blemish, I would have been an offering to the idols instead of you. However, you have returned safely because of your amputated finger, and I survived because you imprisoned me”.

This story may apply to the American elections, and to those who live in the White House for the next four years. As per the current data, it is expected that the Democratic candidate Joe Biden will win the presidency. Perhaps with the release of this edition, the final results would have been announced, which is what the Arabs and the whole world are waiting for.

Let’s look at the matter from another angle, and the impact of the change in the presidents in the White House on Arab-American relations. We therefore say – If Trump falls, perhaps it is a blessing, and if Biden succeeds, perhaps it also is a blessing.

These relations are historical, as they have been ongoing for about 243 years, when Morocco recognized the United States of America, which was the first official global recognition of the nascent state. It was followed by the Sultanate of Oman in 1833, becoming the second Arab country with which the United States signed a treaty of friendship and trade.

Far from the distorted image that the media is trying to paint for the United States, its alliances with the Arabs have been developing according to the movement of events. In the modern era, it established close relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In 1946, former US president Herbert Hoover met King Farouk I. When he came to Cairo as an envoy of President Harry Truman at that time, he sought aid for some European countries that were on the verge of famine after World War II. This was a natural result of the strength of relations between the two countries, which we will know later about how well they returned to Egypt.

As for the tripartite aggression, even though the start of the alliance between the Soviet Union and Egypt, Moscow was unable to provide sufficient support to Cairo, and the decisive position came from US President Dwight Eisenhower, who ordered the end of the aggression, otherwise his administration would take a tough stance. He was the one who stopped that war.

Before that was the famous meeting between King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud and US President Franklin Roosevelt held on Feb 14, 1945 on the deck of the US ship “S Quincy” in the bitter lakes in the middle of the Suez Canal. This represented the beginning of the new US-Arab alliances in the region.

These facts reveal the peculiarity of these relations, the main focus of which is Morocco, the Sultanate of Oman, Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Therefore it is not possible to measure strategic interests with the standard of the president’s personality, even if he was like Barack Obama whose policy was undoubtedly a source of great harm to the Arabs. This is especially after opening the doors to Iran to implement its destructive plan and its support for terrorism represented by the Muslim Brotherhood Group, which paved the way for them to dominate the Arab world, but with the nature of these interests and their impact on the world.

Yes, it is possible that there will be a slight change in the policy of the Democratic administration, but it will not reach the stage of a coup. What President Trump thankfully did to the region is much deeper than the formalities, as he stopped a scheme that almost opened the gates of hell to our countries. The new administration will not be able to change it, especially since Joe Biden said, “It is true that I am the Democratic nominee, but I will be the President of all Americans.”

Today, after the expansion of the Arab countries that normalized their relations with Israel, which no longer have major concerns from the Arabs, the new stage will cause a shift in attention to another direction, as the whole of the Middle East is in the midst of a bigger conflict between China and the United States of America. The region, with what it has in terms of economic weight and natural resources, no doubt represents a vital area for Washington, which will not abandon it.

Therefore, all controversial issues – even the Palestinian issue – will be the subject of understanding among all concerned parties with more cooperation in the way of a major confrontation.

In the end, we have to look with the eyes of the wise minister, who made all events a blessing for his king; and we therefore say, “Perhaps this change is a blessing for us”.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times