When America elects...

THE WAY AHEAD: At the finishing line of the marathon US presidential elections, Al-Ahram Weekly explores in an eight-page special supplement the impact of the result of the poll on Egypt, the region and the world. The priorities of the next administration, the challenges ahead for the 44th US president and the world he inherits, are some of the main themes that we address on the following pages.

The Weekly kicks off the debate of how best to reshape the Egyptian-American relationship after eight tense years of the George W Bush administration with an assessment of this complex association.

In two interviews, Nabil Fahmi and Margaret Scobey anticipate the prospects for Cairo's partnership with Washington under a new administration. A random poll carries no surprises: ordinary Egyptians will vote for Obama if they could.

Not eye to eye

Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, Ambassador Nabil Fahmi says the next US administration must adopt a new foreign policy style

Principles and partnership

How do partners determine the guidelines of a healthy relationship? Al-Ahram Weekly asks Ambassador Margaret Scobey

Waiting for Obama

Amira Howeidy canvasses Egypt's political activists for their views on the US elections

Conditional tense

Will the election results affect the role of American aid to Egypt, asks Gamal Essam El-Din

The thrills and spills of elections

Nevine Khalil reflects on campaigning for Obama

A reluctant Middle East

The neoconservatives bequeath their successors a Middle East that has not gone according to Washington's plans, writes Amr Hamzawy

End or new beginning?

With Barack Obama knocking on the door of the White House, the Republican Party is in crisis, writes Gamil Matar. But the neocons are unlikely to give up without a fight

A vote for change

Obama's promise of change has affected Egyptians as well. Al-Ahram Weekly listens to what some would say if they had a voice in the US presidential elections

The other face of liberty

It is not only Bush that led many in Egypt and the Arab world to reject America, writes Salah Eissa

Reshaping Egyptian-American relations

The US presidential elections mark a potential turning point in Egyptian-American relations and offer the opportunity for rebuilding the Middle East on the basis of shared values, writes Abdel-Moneim Said

A daunting agenda for the next president

Widely tipped as a possible secretary of state in a future Democratic administration, former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke has given an indication of his thinking in a recently published article

TIMELINE Cairo-Washington: The bumpy road