Comment: Obama's lesson
Barack Obama aims to present a remade America to the Middle East
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Thursday, 04, Jun 2009 04:37
By Matthew Champion.
Barack Obama pledged to deliver a major address in the capital of a Muslim state before he became president, so you can rest assured that meticulous planning went into every single one of the 5,832 words that made up today's 55-minute speech.
As we have come to expect from Obama, the oratory and rhetoric were superb, but he acknowledged very early on at Cairo University today that "words alone cannot meet the needs of our people".
If the US favours a two-state solution to the Palestinian question (and it most definitely does), President Obama envisages a seven-issue solution to restoring relations with the Middle East and the wider Muslim world.
But while he spoke in general terms of America's commitment to tackling violent extremism, not forcing democracy upon states, emphasising religious tolerance, freedom of speech and women's rights, two issues stand out, namely Israel and Iran.
In Israel, it is plainly clear that the Obama administration has identical policies to the Kadima party, the only problem being that following elections earlier this year, it is no longer in power.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party's silence on the two-state solution is almost violent. The deafening void continued in the aftermath of the president's speech, with these words still ringing in the Israeli leadership's ears:
"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements... It is time for these settlements to stop."
The response from said settlers was more forthcoming, with leaders of the illegal settlements accusing the president - referred to as "Hussein Obama" in a pathetic attempt at an insult - of giving priority to "Arab lies".
For the Palestinian factions, Obama's speech was much more welcome, with a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas saying the Palestinian Authority president was confident a "new and different" American policy was emerging.
Hamas, previously a dirty word for US presidents, said the speech contained "many positive points".
President Obama has been walking a tightrope between his liberal supporters and the traditional American right since the day he entered office; on this evidence his balancing act in the Middle East is proving just as problematic.
 | "The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth." |
"Whatever we think of the past we must not be prisoners to it, our problems must be dealt with by partnerships, our progress must be shared," he said in Cairo in a message that hints at a complete overhaul of decades of failed peace initiatives.
As President Obama began his address, in Iran the country's supreme leader was reiterating the "deep hatred" Iranians felt towards the US.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marking 20 years since the death of his predecessor and the founder of the Republic, said Obama's "beautiful and sweet" words would not make a difference to relations with his country.
President Obama began his speech by saying words alone would not be sufficient to build relations between the US and the Muslim world - something that can only be achieved by resolving the impasse in Palestine and in Iran's uranium enrichment programme - but he knows the power of them.
After the Islamic Revolution Iran experienced a population boom, with one in four of its 70 million population under 15 according to a three-year-old census.
Largely unnoticed, President Obama addressed them directly for perhaps the first time.
"The issues I've described will not be easy to address," he said.
"If we choose to be bound by the past we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith and country. You more than anyone have the ability and opportunity to remake this world."
After bringing change to America, change in the Middle East is on the president's agenda. And a process has begun with the words he spoke in Cairo today; the onus is now on Israel and its Arab neighbours to realise he is right, even if the world must wait for a new generation of political leadership.