It was an astounding night in America and around the world. Even so, reality is quickly intruding into the jumble of elation, incredulity and anticipation which greeted Barack Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States. Several news outlets report that Obama is not resting, but is solidly focused on his transition team - and, by extension, the issues they will face.

In the Middle East, Iran stands out as the major strategic question for the next Administration. It seems that the Tehran regime has drawn no comfort from Obama’s victory. The full-throated cheering in Chicago’s Grant Park was still going strong when the Iranian army issued a statement darkly warning that any violation of their airspace would result in reprisals against US forces in Iraq. An Iranian politician who, understandably, didn’t want to be named, offered this interpretation of the statement’s timing: “This is a clear message to the American president-elect because radicals are not very happy that Obama has been elected.”

Iran’s state-run media organs did their level best to play down the significance of Obama’s victory. “Another analyst on state television called Obama window dressing,” reported the LA Times. “‘The ruling establishment has decided to mend its widow display, and that is why it was predictable that Obama would be president,’ said the analyst.”

As the same report makes clear, the reaction on the streets was markedly different. “Goldsmith Ali Motaz said he went home Tuesday night at around 10 p.m. and asked his wife and children to forget about watching videos and sitcoms for one night.” I said, ‘Let’s tune in just to Voice of America,’ the U.S.-funded Persian language news and public affairs satellite channel.”

There’s also some grimly amusing humor doing the rounds. “I would like Americans to have elected someone like Ahmadinejad to be their president just so they would know how bad things are here,” said Ali Zadek, a 29 year old company director.

Elsewhere in the region, negative reactions to Obama’s were widespread. Al Jazeera spoke to a group of prominent Egyptians, all of whom took the opportunity to complain about the US relationship with Israel, rather than raise something in their own country’s relationship with Washington which an Obama Presidency could change (like, say, the fact that Egypt is also a recipient of massive US aid, most of which, according to one former US diplomat, goes towards supporting “antiquated programs and to resisting reforms.”)

Obama is in a good position to secure a stronger degree of trust from the various Middle Eastern publics, particularly if he acts swiftly on an issue like Guantanamo Bay, which is more about symbolism and human rights, and less about security. But any sensitivity or concern he shows to Israel will be rapidly interpreted as a sign, as Ahmed Kafafi says in the Al Jazeera piece linked above, that the US cannot be trusted because it is “a big supporter of Israel.”

And when the news that 78 per cent of American Jews voted for Obama spreads through the Middle East, watch out for the usual conspiracy theories.