"Obama is just a prettier face. I'm sure his intentions are in the right place but I don't expect much from the man," a Cairo electrician said on Wednesday as US President Barack Obama began his much-anticipated Middle East trip.
Newspapers, analysts and ordinary Arabs warned Obama -- whose election was hailed across the region -- against emulating the policies of Bush by lecturing Muslims on democracy, and also urged him to be tough with Israel.
Obama began his tour in Saudi Arabia and will deliver a speech inCairo on Thursday to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, after eight years of fraught ties under his predecessor George W. Bush.
"Don't be biased towards Israel, don't interfere in countries' internal affairs and don't give lessons in democracy," said an editorial inEgypt's state-owned Rose El-Youssef newspaper.
The chief editor of Egypt's state-owned Al-Ahram, Ossama Saraya, said Obama faced demands from his team to "put pressure on theMuslim world under the pretext of democratisation and respect for human rights.
"There's nothing more absurd than putting more pressure on the Arab-Muslim world," Saraya said.
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