Rick Moran
I have just finished watching President Obama's address at Cairo University and I'm sure some of my colleagues here at AT will be weighing in with their opinions of the speech.
My immediate impression was a sense of sadness. The president's interpretation of the history between Islam and the west is tragically, even dangerously mistaken. He has drawn the wrong lessons from this history and is proceeding from some false assumptions, that if carried through to their logical conclusion, will make the situation between Islam and the west worse. This is because inevitably, his efforts at altering the dynamics of change in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and the Israeli-Palistnian conflict will fail - with unknown consequences for us all. The assumption that Islam has a history of "tolerance" for all religions is a dubious one. Tell that to the Christians in Iraq, the West Bank, Egypt itself, and other Arab nations where persecution is the rule not the exception. Obama mentioned Indonesia which does indeed "allow" Christians to worship but also features a history of hostility to the Christian faith and where Christians are second class citizens in many areas of that country.
Another assumption of Obama's that raised alarm bells for me was his belief that no one nation can dominate in his brave new world. Someone should have told our president that the only way the US can be prevented from dominating the world - a domination made manifest by our economic power and spread of our culture as much as our military prowess - is by subsuming our interests to those of other nations or the UN. Of course, this is what liberals have been agitating for - at least since Viet Nam - and Obama is apparently going to give it to them.
But it was Obama's lecture to Muslims about terrorism that fell flatest with his audience.
Nothing highlighted this more than how his audience reacted to much of his analysis about the problems with Islamic extremism. You could hear the crickets chirping as Obama, in his best analysis of the speech, took all of Islam to task for things like 9/11 and Holocaust denial, denial of Israel's right to exist (absolute silence when he said that "Israel isn't going anywhere"), support for al-Qaeda, support for Palestinian violence, and a host of other problematic considerations by Muslims in their conflict with the west.
His words on Iraq were greeted with cheers only when he mentioned American "sins" like torture and "war of choice." Dead silence greeted his announcement that the war in Afghanistan was forced upon us by 9/11. In short, the reaction of his audience, which was made up of non-typical Muslims in that these were largely the educated elites in Egypt, and not the "man in the souk" who makes up the bulk of Muslims in the world, showed that this first effort at outreach failed to move many minds.
The standing ovation given to the president at the end of the speech was significant. It showed that if an American president can humble himself and his country before close minded elites, he will get nice write ups in Arab newspapers and praise from those "moderate" Muslims who are always eager to point out America's sins but rarely give their own transgressions much thought.
This ultimately is why the president will fail to build a bridge to all but those Muslims predisposed to his message of democracy and human rights. The vast majority of his target audience wasn't listening, doesn't want to listen, and rejects his critique of extremist Islam anyway.
The president aimed high and fell flat.
Update:
Here's a text of the speech from the New York Times.
Also, liberal Craig Crawford's nauseating, gushing, swooning take on the speech:
For the first time since Jimmy Carter's Camp David accords we have a president with the skills, understanding and commitment to make a real difference in a region that has bedeviled the world for generations. Carter's 1978 brokering of a deal between Egypt and Israel to recognize each other and pursue peace still stands as the only lasting agreement of its kind since those days.
Obama's phenomenal speech gracefully shifted from historical tensions to current conflicts between Muslim nations and the western world. Without taking sides he was not shy about noting the wrongdoing of extremists on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance.
Perhaps his most controversial words at home will turn out to be calling Afghanistan a war of necessity, while labeling Iraq a "war of choice." Although Obama has said such things before, his political foes will probably seize upon his decision to say it on foreign soil.
But acknowledging that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake -- or at least seeming to say so -- will probably do more to impress the Muslim world than just about anything else in this historic speech.
Crawford writes that Obama "knocked it out of the park." No doubt for the left, he did.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/obamas_cairo_speech.html at June 04, 2009 - 09:22:18 AM EDT
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