What Are The Ramifications Of Obama’s Speech To The Muslim World?

On Thursday in Cairo, President Obama will give his long-awaited address to the Muslim world. How important is this speech to mending frayed relations with Muslim populations, and what specific steps should the U.S. take or announce to restore its credibility in the Middle East? How important are administration efforts to restart a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians to relations with the Muslim world? Does the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq now under way represent a chance to "reset" Western-Muslim relations?

Here is what Michael Brenner, Professor of International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh has to say on Obama's speech in Cairo. (citizenjournal)

Colleagues,

Whatever words Obama utters in Cairo likely will have only a transitory effect. To have a lasting influence, they must carry a credible commitment to action; and they must be followed by concrete changes in what the United States has been doing in the Islamic world. Too many in Washington and its environs suffer from the delusion that hostility toward the United States stems from misunderstandings, especially about American goodwill toward Muslims. This is a convenient delusion. It excuses multiple sins of commission and omission Indications are that Obama will stress his own respect for, and sympathies with the believers in Allah – as he has done twice previously. That may produce an up-tick in the public opinion polls – little more.

What Muslims want to know can be summarized in a set of questions.

1. Will the United States insist on an end to the brutalization of the Gazans, i.e. free movement of medical supplies, food and construction materials – and no more Israeli bombardments?

2. Will the United States strongly press Israel to take tangible steps confirming its commitment to the Oslo principles?

3. Will the United States cease it practices of rendition and torture without ‘ands, ifs and buts?’

4. Will the United States do something serious about the millions of Iraqi refugees it created?

5. Will the United States state unequivocally that it does not seek permanent military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and act accordingly?

6. Will Obama and Hillary ClintonHillary Clinton cease their humiliating public chastisements of elected leaders like Mr. Karzai and Zardari?

7. Will the United States offer a compelling explanation of why it has a truer understanding of the threats posed by the Taliban than does Afghans and Pakistani?

This doubtless reads like a list of radical propositions to most Americans. It reads like elementary common sense in the Islamic world. No flow of words in Cairo will change that simple yet basic truth. Imagining ourselves in the minds of Muslims would help. To use Washington’s habitual mode of address: we ‘must’ realize that these people are as intelligent as we, as proud as we, as sensitive to affronts as we.

Michael Brenner

mbren@pitt.edu

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