Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Several copies of Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" are prominently displayed in Jarir Bookstore here. They have not moved in weeks.

Browser Najla Khaled doesn't change that. Standing before the same shelf and lifting her full-face black veil to survey her choices, she grabs novelist Jeffrey Archer's latest release and walks away.

It's not that she dislikes presidential contender Obama. "I saw him on Tyra Banks's show and I think he has great opinions," says the 17-year-old high schooler. But his policies have not roused Najla, who's only heard "some random stuff ... here and there."

Senator Obama's campaign may have launched groundswells of hope, ardor, and optimism at home and in Europe. But at the start of his closely watched trip to the Middle East, the all-but-certain Democratic nominee is little known in the Arab world, and has yet to generate widespread interest or enthusiasm.

From Baghdad to Beirut, people said in recent interviews that they are unfamiliar with his policies, except for his plan to move quickly to pull US troops out of Iraq.

In general, they said they prefer Obama over the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, whom they view as unsympathetic to Arabs.

But even those who like Obama's personality are not expecting him to initiate major turnabouts on US Middle East policies, particularly on the most contentious one of all, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The only way that Obama will be better for us is that he will try to suck the life out of the Arabs through diplomacy, while Bush tried to do it through war," says Fathy Tantawy as he inspects a small carburetor on the table next to his tea cup in a Cairo cafe.

"When they look at the Middle East they all have the same thoughts, whether it's Obama or Clinton's wife or Bush or … who is that other guy on TV?" He pauses to think. "Oh yeah, McCain."

A vast and volatile region, the Middle East stretches from Atlantic-washed Casablanca to hill-encircled Tehran. It is home to 340 million Arabs, 65 million Iranians, and almost 6 million Jews in Israel.

The region is vital to US interests as the main source of the world's oil. It also is the birthplace of Islam and the hottest battleground in the global struggle between Muslim moderates and extremists.

Obdurately resistant to democratization, the area also contains some of the world's most vexing problems: Iran's nuclear-enrichment program, an unstable Iraq, a fractured Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All this in a part of the world where US influence and prestige have plummeted to new depths. Washington is blamed for failing to use its influence with Israel to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in particular, to halt the spread of Israeli settlements in occupied territories.

The 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal deepened Arab disillusionment, leaving a carapace of cynicism and distrust that will be difficult for any future president to dislodge.

"Bush has been a disaster for the Arabs and anyone is better than him," says Hanna Sfeir, a young barber in Beirut. "I hope Obama wins and that he will treat the Arabs more fairly."

Many Arabs believe Obama would adopt a more impartial approach to the Middle East than McCain. "I think he is a bit more aware of our side of the story," says Eman F. al-Nafjan of Riyadh, who blogs at Saudiwoman's Weblog. McCain "makes us feel as though he doesn't even view us as human."

Still, Obama's ratings in the Arab world are a shadow of his strong European confidence ratings. Twenty-two percent of Jordanians expressed confidence in Obama, versus 23 percent in McCain, while in Lebanon, Obama got 34 percent to McCain's 26 percent. Egypt's rankings were similar, with Obama getting a 31 percent confidence rating against McCain's 23 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

In the dusty Cairo cafeteria of Hurriya, or Freedom, ceiling fans spun in lazy circles on a recent weekend morning. A few dozen men sat reading newspapers and drinking small glasses of strong tea. There was little enthusiasm for the first black US presidential nominee.

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