Obama in Cairo

Barack Obama's Cairo speech to the Muslim world had it all--and had nothing.

It struck all the right tonal notes, yet revealed not one new initiative. It rephrased and re-adjusted themes offered in his April 6 speech in Turkey, but it did not break new grounds in his expectations for the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It paid homage to democratic movements, women's and civil rights, but did nothing to resolve the contradiction of American presidents, Obama among them, embracing the brutally repressive tyrannies and autocracies of the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia to Jordan to North Africa, including, not least, Obama's host this morning: Egypt.

Maybe we should take Obama at his word. “No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust.” No single speech can realign years of misguided policy. Maybe not. Then again, this could have been a Sadat-in-Jerusalem moment. A moment when the gesture, the speech and the proposals all worked to begin a new process that does seek to shatter old assumptions.

It took a lot more than that Sadat speech to achieve peace, but the process owed its momentum to that grand gesture. No such momentum was created today. The lecturing tone was there. The inspiring correctives of arrogant presumptions were there. The grand vision, the transcending moment, were not.

Obama is a deliberative president. He thinks strategically. He is painfully, sometimes infuriatingly aware of the long term, scorning short-term palliatives. There were moments in his presidential campaign when he seemed oblivious to a more aggressive winning strategy only to prove to doubters that he had his eyes on the prize all along, and that he wouldn't be swayed by panics of the moment. It does, it will take a strategic vision to achieve a breakthrough in the Middle East. But it's not as if the diagnosis of the problem isn't clear--or the prescriptions for a solution.

That said, there were key moments in the speech that sounded unlike anything any American president ever said before on Muslim and Arab territory.

He called Palestine by its name. Repeatedly. (Well, twice.) Not "the Palestinian Authority," not "the Palestinian plight," not "the Palestinian territories," but Palestine. About time.

He did something no American politician has ever dared do. He pointed out what some of us on the alleged fringe have been pointing out for years: that while Israel is big on complaining about Palestinians and Arabs denying it the right to exist, it's time for Israel to stop denying Palestine's right to exist: "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s."

And he described the day-to-day brutality of Palestinian life under Israel's boots in no uncertain terms: "So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own."

He also extended the hint of a hand to Hamas, not least by citing it by name: "Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist."

Actually, Hamas doesn't have support among some Palestinians, but among the majority of Palestinians that elected it in legitimate parliamentary elections the United States encouraged.

There were other moments that will resonate in the Muslim world, and that no other American president would have dared pull off: When Obama mentioned the name of the Prophet Muhammad, he added the required verbal shirttail: Peace be upon him. Or almost did. He cleverly couched it as "peace be upon them," having also mentioned Moses and Christ in the same sentence, a wonderful ecumenical flourish that echoed his desire for a Jerusalem as "a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together," a line that got him one of many bursts of applause.

Obama was again too coy on the nuclear issue, lambasting those who would start "a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path" without, once again, acknowledging that Israel started that arms race way back when Lyndon Johnson was president.

"I understand," he said, by means of mitigating the obvious, and the obviously unsaid, "those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons." But that's just words, words Obama himself said he did not believe to hold promise in a realistic future. So he left the substance dangling.

He got repeated applause every time he talked of rights--religious rights, women's rights, the rights of people to live in democratic societies. That should tell him something. That's what tens of millions of Middle Easterners want. But American alliances with the tyrannous likes of Egyptian and Saudi and Tunisian and Algerian and Moroccan regimes only show contempt for people's desires, and show the hypocrisy behind words like those Obama was delivering at Cairo University.

Still, he heard the shout-outs, three times or so, from the crowd: "We love you." So they do. But they want their love requited. Today's speech was a valentine. It was all hearts, roses and forceful words. The Middle East, the Palestinians, Palestine, still await so much as a pre-nup they can wed their future to.

See Also:

• Full Text of Obama's Cairo's Speech
• Barack Obama and the Middle East: A Guide
• How Obama Can Resolve the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
• Obama in Middle East and Arab Eyes
• Obama and Israel: Analysis of Barack Obama's AIPAC Speech
• Obama in Turkey: At the Gates of Islam
• Obama's Speech on Islam, Turkey and Armenia