“All war represents a failure of diplomacy”

- Tony Benn

Last Thursday, Barack Obama delivered a speech in Cairo that was not only an oratorical masterpiece but a substantive statement on U.S.-Arab relations, signaling a new U.S. diplomatic approach to the Middle East. The course charted by Obama is a 180 degree departure from the “might makes right” approach pursued for eight years by the Bush administration. In Cairo, Obama repudiated Bush’s guns and fear approach to Middle Eastern diplomacy in favor of the only approach that really has a chance of solving some of the Middle East’s issues - diplomacy based on understanding, discussion and a willingness to compromise.

In this speech, Obama recast the view of Islam as understood by many, perhaps most, of the West. He gave special attention to Islam’s basic tenets of tolerance and charitable giving, supplanting the oft-held view in the West of Islam as the jihad-based religion preached by Islamic fundamentalists who selectively distort the teachings of the Koran into the violent portrayal of Islam we see on the evening news.

Right-wing conservatives in the U.S. have criticized Obama’s speech as pandering to the Arab world, with the more inane going so far as Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) who called the speech “Un-American” and stated, “I just don’t know who’s side he’s on.” But the pandering was, in large part, diplomacy; and it was far less than most conservatives were predicting.

Obama did not back away from America’s position as a world leader; nor did he apologize for American actions after 9/11. He did not allow our policies and behavior in the Middle East to justify the acts of terrorist groups operating out of Middle Eastern countries. On the contrary, he deliberately opened the wound of 9/11 to justify America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Extremists in the Arab world were just as critical of the speech as were the Inhofe’s of the West. Arab hardliners still committed to the destruction of Israel attacked Obama’s support of Israel’s right to exist. Extremists in Israel objected to his insistence that Israel cease the establishment of new settlements in violation of established Arab-Israeli agreements.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the speech was that it set a new tone of respect and common purpose in U.S.-Muslim relations. Now comes the test of how far a change of tone can actually carry the U.S. toward improving our standing in the Muslim world and how far it can move us down new paths to solving old problems.

For years after the 9/11 attacks, much of the world scolded America over the tone of the Bush administration, saying it had soured relations between Islam and America and had thwarted progress on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Middle East democratization. Obama, by abandoning Bush’s hard-line approach to Middle East diplomacy and by reaching out directly to the Muslim populace, is testing whether or not that assertion can be reversed.

“We heard a great deal from sectors as varied as the leaders in Muslim countries to the man in the street that the tone of the Bush administration was a real barrier in improving America’s image and in addressing some of the issues of critical importance to the United States,” says Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “President Obama is very much intent on setting a different tone and, by an articulation of that and expressing a commonality of interests, seeing how far that gets us.”

Many experts feel the change in tactics signaled by Obama cannot but help the situation in the Middle East. Among these experts is Clovis Maksoud, director of American University’s Center for the Global South in Washington, who said, “This speech carried some clear departures from the recent past, and to the extent those words sink in, it can make a difference.” Maksoud went on to say, “He’s replaced the diplomacy of dictation with the diplomacy of attempted persuasion, and that entails respect for the Muslim people. That can go a long way in defusing the residual anger that has existed.”

Of course, words alone will not rectify the problems of the Middle East. Speeches such as this one may go a long way toward encouraging many key leaders to shed some of their reluctance to participate in multi-national attempts to find solutions, and may even help bring them to the discussions with fewer objections behind which to hide. But words, if not followed by actions, will result in those encouraged by Obama’s stated ideals to retreat into attitudes that are more jaded and more intransigent than those that have prevailed for the past 60 years. “The pressure will mount for moving beyond words on the core issues, and emerging American credibility will be tested early,” said Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

In Cairo, Obama held out the hope of a changing American attitude. While Bush spoke of many of the same themes in the United Arab Emirates in January of 2008, Bush’s tone was much more confrontational, suggesting the Arab world had to bend to America’s will. In that speech, Bush spoke of “confronting this danger [posed by Iran] before it’s too late,” and said that Islamic extremists “hate your government because it does not share their dark vision [and] hate the US because they know we stand with you in opposition to their brutal ambitions.” Coupled with his statements portraying Iran as a member of the “axis of evil,” Bush’s approach offered virtually no hope for a negotiated settlement to any of the Middle East’s problems.

In Cairo, Obama delivered many of America’s same messages, but couched them in different words. What is needed now are positive actions that support Obama’s rhetoric.

Text of President Obama’s Cairo Speech

View Obama’s speech -