Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian clothing designer Azar Razavi isn’t willing to give President Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt.

“Even before Obama set foot in the White House, Israel launched such a military campaign on Gaza,” said the 28-year- old in Tehran. “His cabinet seems to be pro-Israel and his policies will probably be the same. He, too, will probably portray Iran as a troublemaker.”

In places where the U.S. is considered an adversary, many citizens expressed skepticism that Obama, who pledged in his inaugural address yesterday to “seek a new way forward,” will be able to overcome decades of hostility.

In Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez repeatedly threatened to cut off oil exports to the U.S. during George W. Bush’s administration for supposedly engaging in internal meddling and plots to remove him from power, Maira Rios says she sees little difference between Obama and his predecessor.

Obama “is a black Bush,” Rios, a 50-year-old former city worker, said.

In his inaugural address, Obama particularly reached out to Muslims, declaring that “to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” Not all were prepared to heed the call.

Gaza City

In Gaza City’s Daraj quarter, Abdel Karim Saleh, 48, struggled to listen to the inauguration over the clanking noise from a generator chained to a wall outside his home. He lost power as a result of the three-week war with Israel that was halted by a cease-fire this week.

Saleh sat in a living room adorned with posters of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, leaders of the Hamas movement -- considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. -- who were assassinated by Israel in 2004. Jews, he said, control America, and Obama won’t change its alliance with Israel.

“America has to understand that Islam is the solution and the world sooner or later is going to turn into an Islamic world,” Saleh said.

Gaza City native Ramzi Tarfish said he liked only one thing about Obama as he watched Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts swear in the new president: his middle name, Hussein.

“We Palestinians have never gotten anything from the American presidents before Obama, and we’re not going to get anything from him,” said Tarfish, 38.

Taliban, Al-Qaeda

In Pakistan, where Obama has said he would ratchet up pressure to weed out Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who have established themselves in rugged mountains along the Afghan border, the astonishment over his November election has settled into a feeling of muted hope, said Omeer Butt, a 20-year-old in Lahore.

“I think it is good that a black man has come into power,” said Butt. “He can understand the problems of poor people, but we don’t feel confident that Obama will change life for us here.”

Not all were as skeptical. “With Obama in office, policies are going to change” toward Latin America, said Jose de Freitas, a 42-year-old Caracas restaurant owner. “He’s not going to see us as a backyard.”

In Tehran’s Mohseni square, where thousands of residents lit candles after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York to express sympathy with Americans, Omid Javdani, 27, said he hoped Obama would put aside the “hawkish policies” of Bush and “accept the fact that Iran is an influential country rather than considering it as a backward nation and look down on it.”

“Negotiations on an equal basis only can solve the discord,” he said, sitting at a table in the back of a jewelry shop. “But there are radical elements from both countries who may not let it happen.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Tehran at lnasseri@bloomberg.net; Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City through the Jerusalem newsroomt .

Last Updated: January 20, 2009 22:00 EST