The Persian Gulf Primary

A forum in Qatar illustrates the challenges that await the next U.S. President in the Middle East

Illustration by Stephen Kroninger for TIME

In an effort to escape the thrilling claustrophobia of the presidential campaign, I took a busman's holiday and spent Presidents' Day weekend at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha. But there, too, our campaign was pretty much what everyone was talking about. "Excuse me, Mr. Joe," a confrere from Qatar asked, "what's a superdelegate?" An Iranian businessman told me that "Obamamania" was sweeping the America-loving young people of Tehran. And so I expected a fair amount of passion at the panel I'd been asked to moderate: three Muslims venting on what the Islamic world should expect from the...

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