Obama Gets a Small Nod on Baghdad's Haifa Street

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Newsweek

By Saad Al-Izzi

A traffic circle near the end of Baghdad’s once restive Haifa Street is dedicated to the region’s heroes. The street was once named after British Lt. Gen. Stanley Maude, who captured the city in 1917. Then it became King Ghazi Square, after the second Monarch in the Iraqi royal Family. When Pan-Arab spirit rose, it was named after Egypt’s Gamal Abdel-Nasser. A statue of Iraq’s first king, Faisal I (played by Alec Guinness in “Lawrence of Arabia”) is there today.

Now U.S. President Barack Obama has a modest place in the walk of fame on a handmade sign above a pastry shop. The Al Salhiya Bakery has dedicated its storefront, where it sells the traditional breakfast bun, called “kahi,” to the new president. The large orange banner reads, in a mix of Arabic and English, “Kahi Obama.”

“It started as a joke and then turned real,” said storeowner Monthir Tahir, a 35-year-old who has worked in the store since his father opened it when Monthir was a child. Last year, in the run-up to the election, he heard U.S. troops on patrol around the shop discussing their excitement about the upcoming vote. Joining in, Tahir added Obama’s name on small sign in the store’s window and promised to make it bigger if the Democrat won.

Though most symbols of American leadership are viewed skeptically in Baghdad, the sign has not hurt sales, which have actually risen. The shop has a steady mix of regular customers, including local Iraqi police. Kahi is dough soaked in butter and oil, then oven-baked to be crispy and dipped in sugary syrup. It’s usually eaten with “gaimur,” a cream made from buffalo milk.

A year or two ago, it would have been unthinkable for a shop owner to pay homage to an American president on a street where insurgents could run free. Now, though there are still bombings and killings in the capital, the incidents have been reduced steeply since 2007. “The time of fear is gone,” Tahir says.

But heroes come and go in Iraq. Maude’s Brits were driven out and the monarchs were toppled. Tahir is willing to wait and see how Obama does. “We have given him a one year," he says. "After that, if he proves to be good, we will keep the banner and probably we will make him a bigger one."

--With Larry Kaplow

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