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Barack Obama's election raises questions about whether America's enemies in the Middle East will see an opportunity to attack and test his mettle-or to negotiate with a leader who has said he's willing to talk with them.The election of America's first black president, whose middle name is "Hussein" and who ran on a promise to step up international diplomacy, raises pressing questions about how the terrorist cells and rogue nations of the Middle East will respond.Barack Obama's own running mate, Joe Biden, warned in the weeks before the election that America's enemies would "test the mettle" of a fresh leader like Obama.Yet after winning Tuesday's election, Obama received congratulations from groups like Hamas and from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suggesting that America's detractors, at least in the short term, may want to ratchet down their antagonism.Part of the issue is that Obama's international image-as the son of a Muslim from Kenya who once live in Indonesia-differs strikingly from that of George W. Bush, who has been perceived as a Texas cowboy from a politically elite family. And despite Obama's Christian roots, his membership in a Christian church and his continual denials throughout the campaign that he is a Muslim, there are some around the world who still don't believe him.In September, Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi declared to his people that Obama is a Muslim because his name proved it."All the people in the Arab world, Islamic world and Africans have applauded him and are expecting good results," Qaddafi said.But terrorists have tested the last two presidents early-the two attacks on the World Trade Center occurred in the first year of Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's presidencies-and many analysts say Obama must be prepared to be tested as well.Think tank analysts and foreign policy experts are struggling to handicap the immediate security challenges an Obama presidency would face. "There's the potential that somebody's going to roll the dice on an untested leader," said James Carafano, a homeland security expert at The Heritage Foundation, noting that the window for such testing is typically about a year long.But he said Obama's election won't necessarily influence terrorists to launch an attack on U.S. soil. "It's not like they've been sitting around waiting to see who's elected president," Carafano said.In the early months of the Obama administration, any terrorist challenge to the U.S. likely will come within the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.He said the U.S. should expect "modest upticks" in violence on those battlegrounds as terrorists "probe" Obama's response."They respond to events like this, and try their hand to see if they can get lucky," Biddle said.Pete Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom, a group critical of Obama during the campaign for his Iraq positions, said insurgents also may try to exploit what they see as a coming withdrawal of troops."I think what Joe Biden said on the campaign trail was true-we will be tested on one or multiple planes, certainly as Iraq is concerned," Hegseth said.By Judson Berger
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