Well, we are now set to discover whether Muslims are as reality-resistant and intoxicated with charisma as Americans. This week, President Obama and Messrs. al-Zawahiri and bin Laden delineated the parameters of the discussion. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the al-Qaeda team reminded the Muslim world of the substance of what they are fighting for: The impact of American intervention in the Muslim world, especially U.S. support for Arab tyrannies, its never-ending coddling and protection of Israel, and its military presence across the Muslim world. On the last point, bin Laden was particularly effective in reminding his brethren of a million displaced Pakistanis because of Pakistan’s army doing America’s dirty work. (The western media and the White House have described the al-Qaeda leaders’ speeches as “signs of desperation,” sure signs of the media’s ignorance of the Islamist enemy, its abject boot-licking of Obama, and the White House’s readiness to lie to the electorate no matter which party is in power.)

For his part, Mr. Obama loyally stood by the traditions of the status quo U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that Americans have suffered under for thirty-five years. First, Obama cleared his trip and speech with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Washington before departing; then he said in Cairo that the Israel-U.S. bond is unbreakable; and now he is finishing up his trip with a pilgrimage to a Nazi concentration camp. In other words, Obama made it crystal clear to all but the willfully blind that Israel’s interests come first for the U.S. government, and it surely is only simple-minded Americans and Muslims who would believe the White House-planted stories about how Obama's decision not to visit Israel on this trip is a signal of his intention to be tough with Israel. (Re Obama’s statement that he views Israeli settlements as “illegitimate” -- does anyone really think that the AIPAC-owned Congress will allow him to try to stop that which he considers “illegitimate”?)

Second, Obama flew to Saudi Arabia to at least figuratively bow to and then clear his speech with the America’s energy boss, vital debt funder, and its elite’s best Islamofascist friend, King Abdullah. Third, Obama flew off to Cairo for his speech, but before speaking he made himself available for extensive photo opportunities with that beloved paragon of freedom and the Muslim Tom Paine, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (One can only imagine the high-fives that occurred at Al-Qaeda headquarters as the photos and videos of Obama with these tyrants flew around the world on TV and the Internet.)

And fourth, the speech itself. It was as if someone revived Woodrow Wilson and Harold Ickes and put them in Obama’s body. He preached self-determination for Muslims, which may be a bit tricky to achieve since most Muslims under the jackboot of Isalmofascist rulers his and all U.S. governments supports. He followed his presidential successors and demanded that Hamas both give up violence -- presumably to allow Israel and the gangster-like Palestinian Authority Obama supports to wipe it out -- and engage in the suicidal act of declaring that Israel has a “right to exist,” a “right” that has been accorded to no other country in history, including the United States.

Then, for an Islamic world sick unto death of U.S. intervention, Obama girded his loins and promised … more intervention. Under the Clintonian rubric of “partnership” -- a euphemism for U.S. interventionism to promote the westernization of the Islamic world -- Obama pledged to help America’s little brown brothers with something akin to a westernizing “New Deal,” one which would improve women’s rights, digitize their records, create jobs, arrange micro-financing, unleash a “new corps of business volunteers” to assist Muslims in economic development, and miraculously even “grow new crops.”. To further advance westernization, Obama also pledged to bring more Muslim students to the United States and to fund scholarships and internships for them. (NB: This is quite typical for Democrats. Increasing numbers of U.S. kids cannot afford college, but the Democratic leaders are much more interested in burnishing their citizen-of-the-word credentials by making sure foreigners get educations ahead of American kids. And what about the security implications of a new wave of college-age Muslim students entering the United States, and Obama’s pledge to make it easier for American Muslims to donate to Islamic charities? )

In the weeks ahead, then, we are certain to see a jump in the Muslim world’s positive view of President Obama and the United States; after all, the same American-idol syndrome that prompted Americans to elect a thoroughly inexperienced and unqualified man as president has to some extent permeated the Muslim world. But that jump will be transitory because Muslims will see that Obama’s words will not be matched with deeds. The war in Iraq will be heating up, and the war in Afghanistan will be intensifying and will push additional tens of thousands of Pakistani and Afghan civilians into refugee camps. But most of all, Muslims will see that nothing has really changed on the issues of central importance to them. Obama will be supporting the oppressors that rule them because he needs Arab oil and debt-financing, and Mr. Netanyahu will continue colonizing Palestine and -- at his discretion -- still has the ability to drag 300 million Americans into war Israel’s religious war with Iran.

And Ayman and Osama will smile.

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http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/06/baby-steps-in-cairo.html

The President presses the reset button better than anyone: he has done it repeatedly and well--this speech may be the epitome. "Barack Obama, we love you," one audience member yelled out. No one should underestimate the importance of an American President eliciting genuine enthusiasm in the Middle East.

That said, he hasn't yet gotten much in return. Love maybe, but also a nuclear test by the North Koreans, stiff-arming from the Iranians and Syrians, grumbling from the Israelis, little or nothing from the Russians and Chinese, a downhill slide in Iraq, marginal help in Afghanistan from the Europeans... The Cubans seem to be readier than anyone else to engage seriously, but I wouldn't want to hold my breath for results.

The trick now is to turn the President's personal popularity and the improved atmosphere his respectful approach to the rest of the world has generated into results that will noticeably improve American security and prosperity. This will require grit as well as grin. Also time and patience. What is he going to do in reaction to the North Korean tests? What will he do after the Iranian elections? Will he get the Russians on board for tougher sanctions? How will he react if the Israelis continue to build settlements? What if things go south in Iraq? Will the new strategy work in Afghanistan? What will he do about Darfur?

The speech was powerful. But the time is coming to begin to show that the new tone will enable us to work wonders. I haven't seen any--yet.

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Seems that we were pretty much on the mark in our expectations, except for one or two surprisingly (to me, anyway) candid admissions (e.g. Mossadegh affair). It was eloquent and earnest in tone – as are all of Obama’s public declarations. Let us not be churlish, attitude and mood do count even if actions alone are the sufficient factor that determines outcomes. A dispassionate listener, though, would find it hard to reconcile the principles and high mindedness enunciated with just about everything we have been doing, and continue to do, in the Islamic world. Even leaving aside military actions, consider Obama’s subtle disquisition on democratic political culture with its emphasis on mutual respect and autonomy pf political decision. Yet the United States has been up to its neck trying to manipulate the internal politics of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq (picking favorites to back actively); Lebanon (threatening an aid cutoff if our people don’t win); and Palestine (annul a free election by coercive means). This conduct goes unquestioned in most of Washington as a sort of natural right. I propose that we pay attention to this sphere as well as to the diplomatic ones as we monitor whether actions are matching words.

Here's a link to the text of President Obama's speech today in Cairo, if anyone wants to comment on the speech itself, please feel free:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html

President Obama is trying to accomplish what his predecessors over the past decades failed to do: get Israel to keep its word about stopping the expansion of settlements, and get the Arab states to take the first steps toward normalizing relations with the Jewish state (including not fussing about the term "Jewish state", which is no more offensive than the term "Islamic Republic.). The President clearly has set a very high bar for himself, and, in doing so, he will have to make some trade-offs. These will include:

• Not pressing the issue of democratization at this time. The United States simply cannot expect Egypt, or any of the other moderate Arab regimes, to work toward a settlement with Israel while it attacks them for not moving quickly enough to satisfy their domestic (and often non-democratic) oppositions. In most cases, a rush toward democratization would mean the weakening, if not the death knell, of the very regimes likely to negotiate new arrangements with Israel. If the Administration wants a peace deal in the region, democracy has to wait its turn.

• Pressing Israel hardest to dismantle hilltop and settlements that are illegal even by Israeli standards, and to stop any sort of construction in settlements that are of recent vintage or are in relatively remote locations. While this approach might not satisfy more rabid demands for an Israeli pullback, it has the virtues of having some realism to it. Many so-called settlements, especially those near Jerusalem, are actually medium-sized towns and small cities. It is quixotic to think that Israel will agree that it cannot build playgrounds, or extra rooms to extant houses in these places. Just getting the Israelis to dismantle ALL the hilltop settlements, without exception, and to halt construction in literally dozens of other settlements, will send a major signal of American commitment to a true two-state solution.

• Pushing the PA to stop tolerating anti-Israeli incitement in state run schools and media. This should be relatively easy for the Palestinians, and would remove a major excuse for Israeli inaction

• Pushing Israel to prosecute and jail settler thugs who are terrorizing Palestinians by burning their fields, and threatening physical violence. Thugs are thugs, no matter their religion, and should be dealt with accordingly.

These are initial demands on the part of the U.S.; more would follow in due course, as each side backs down and the other (to include all the Arab states) responds with new confidence building measures.

None of the above will make either side happy, however; each side will see these suggestions as either inadequate or too demanding. Exactly, that is how realistic compromises are achieved and agreements reached. Best of luck Mr. President, you'll need it.

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President Obama’s gifts as an orator may be many, but most of our experts this week are skeptical that his speech in Cairo tomorrow can do much to change the image of America in the Muslim world. That will only be changed by different policies, and hard work, and too, an acknowledgement that Muslims, whether Arabs or other, should be treated as equals, not as failures, or people we should be lecturing to.

Whatever Obama says, wrote Michael Brenner, the words, “must carry a credible commitment to action; they must be followed by concrete changes in what the United States has been doing in the Islamic world.”

Wayne White echoed those sentiments, writing: “There comes a point, especially with so many major issues in play directly involving the U.S. that affect various parts of the region, at which the importance of rhetoric begins to degrade noticeably, and follow-through assumes considerably more importance.”

The reasons given for skepticism over the possible impact of Obama’s speech run the gamut. They include Robert Baer’s assessment that the hangover from Abu Ghraib and the treatment of Muslims in secret U.S. prisons is so great, that until the United States makes a complete and open investigation into those practices, we can make no progress. “Until we come clean on our secret prisons and torture, establish once again we're an open society, capable of telling the truth, and correcting course, Obama will not be heard in Cairo.”

Other experts say without fundamental change in U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama will accomplish little. Paul Pillar puts it this way: “Despite all that has been written about how this conflict is more rationale than heartfelt conviction, and not the root of all mayhem in the region, the fact remains that—rightly or wrongly, logically or not—it is the most salient issue by which citizens of the region measure and evaluate the policies and intentions of others, including the United States.”

Michael Scheuer says that Obama should go a step further, and end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and make a clear statement that any Israeli attack on Iran will be opposed by Washington. “Obama should say that if Prime Minister Netanyahu orders Israel’s forces to attack Iran, Washington will break relations with Israel, will not fight at her side in such an offensive war Iran, and will not overtly or covertly resupply Israel’s forces during such a war. Such a statement would attract Muslim attention and, even better, would keep the United States out of the other peoples’ religious wars.”

Michael Vlahos and Chris Seiple make the point that we need to emphasize the common threads that tie Islam and the West, and that we are not two civilizations at each others’ throats. Wrote Vlahos: “Enraptured since 9-11 by our dark homilies of civilization versus barbarism, we have unconsciously etched and scored a fateful difference until it has become a looming divide in our minds.”

Seiple wrote that we need to engage the Muslim world directly on religion, and the fact that we don’t is part of the problem. Obama should appoint an ambassador for international religious freedom. “President Obama has created great expectations. These expectations, if not met in a methodical and practical manner, could make the Middle East situation worse.”

A couple of experts wrote that it is important to keep in mind that Muslim societies bear much of the responsibility for the friction between them and the United States, and it is their societies that must change first.

Wrote Dan Goure: Obama “represents a fundamental challenge to the political, social and economic structures of that part of the world he hopes to befriend….We all know that the basic reason that any schism exists between the Muslim/Arab world and the United States is because of the internal inconsistencies in the Muslim/Arab world and the terrorists that those inconsistencies breed. Nothing the President can say on Thursday will alter this basic reality.”

Joseph Collins was of a similar mind: “Their societies have failed the modernization test and their governments of various stripes…have failed miserably and failed for generations.”

Despite the skepticism over the speech, many of our bloggers say that there is still value in Obama making it if only as the first step in a longer and larger project of improving U.S. relationships with the Muslim world.

Wrote Sen. Kit Bond: “With his speech this week, President Obama has an opportunity to send a powerful – and critical – message to the Muslim world: America is not at war with you.”

Wrote Ron Marks: “What we say, how we say, and what we do matters….But, we need to start with some kind of consistent conversation to begin to move that way. I would hope that President Obama's speech in Cairo could be that first step.”

Patrick Lang cautioned, however, that change in the Islamic world will come slowly and that we shouldn’t get our hopes up too high. “It is very easy to exagerate the importance of such an event….Islamicate civilization is changing and will continue to change but it is changing at the kind of glacial pace that is to be expected in a multi-faceted cultural matrix inhabited by over a billion people across the world.”

Here’s the link to join the discussion:

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/what-are-the-ramifications-of.php

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The key to our relationship with the Ummah (and I mean the community of all Muslims) is kinship.

Today in contrast we treat Muslims as the other, the stranger. They are not of us, and we broadcast our terms to all who will listen: We welcome and embrace their converts to our Democratic American faith, titular Muslims though they may remain.

But we remain at heart, Crusaders. Not in 12th century mode, surely, but nonetheless on 12th century terms. Here I am not reflexively invoking racism or “orientalism” or any of the other sins of Western Modernity as it has approached the Muslim World since the Battle of the Pyramids.

I am invoking instead another more ancient shadow, the one cast by our forgotten ancestors: whose greatest Crusade culminated in the sack of the greatest Christian city.

You see we approach Islam and the Muslim World much like Latin Frankish crusaders approached Byzantium, the world of the fabled Romaioi. We forget how our learned bishops and rough-hewn barons all saw Greek-speaking Byzantines as heretics.

In their eyes Constantinople was the 12th century equivalent of What Went Wrong. To righteous crusaders Byzantium was a civilization in need of being set right with God — and by God the Latin West did its best to make it so with regime change in 1204.

My point is that in 1204 the remote posterity of the Western Roman Empire made war on the remote posterity of the Eastern Roman Empire as though each was the stranger, the other. Yet they were brothers: they were each the child of Greco-Roman Antiquity.

As is Islam — yet we approach Islam and the Muslim World like the 12th century Latin West zeroing in on Constantinople.

Islam is just as much a part of our civilization as the Orthodox world of Russia and the Balkans. We come from the same place, and our civilization has been nurtured by the same ideas and dreams.

But we cannot see this. Bernard Lewis’ What Went Wrong is perhaps the most pernicious screed of late modernity, because it codifies Islam as the other, the stranger. Yet we know that the world he describes was in our own, early modernity, a living part of the West. The Ottoman World was half Christian too, and in the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries it was intimately (even in conflict) tied to the West.

Forgetting this, and enraptured since 9-11 by our dark homilies of civilization versus barbarism, we have unconsciously etched and scored a fateful difference until it has become a looming divide in our minds.

If we ever want to reconnect with the Ummah, and especially its original Greco-Roman core, we need to reestablish our kinship with lost brothers and sisters.

Can a speech really begin to do this? Let’s see.

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"How many hundreds of thousands would you like on the streets?" This is a question that must have been asked of the "advanced team." That question is much asked in similar circumstances in that part of the world. There will be many hundreds of thousands, and why not? For the Muslim World, (ah, excuse me, the "Muzlim World") Barack Obama is a great novelty. Most inhabitants of that "World" would never have believed that the nasty, racist, heathen Americans would elect such a man. Mufaja'a! We did it. There will be great rejoicing at the sight. Mighty bloviations will be voiced on the air there and here. That doesn't mean that anything important will necessarily change. It is very easy to exagerate the importance of such an event.

It was opined below earlier that Obama's visit "may well be the spark that revolutionizes the Middle East and at last makes it into Iowa." (paraphrasing) That kind of thinking is so patronising and paternalistic towards the Muslims that the worst excesses of Bush Administration hopes for the Middle East come to mind. Islamicate civilization is changing and will continue to change but it is changing at the kind of glacial pace that is to be expected in a multi-faceted cultural matrix inhabited by over a billion people across the world.

Islam (the religion) is a faith built for laymen. It has no clergy, only scholars. It has no hierarchy. Even the Shia divines are really just scholars with certificates of learning that entitle them to claim a due influence over the opinions of the faithful with regard to what Islam really is. Ijma', (consensus in religion) is the chief organizing principle of Islam. You can find any number of Muslims who will tell you that the takfiri jihadis are not true Muslims. Husni Mubarak and the Sheikh of al-Azhar can announce that from the top of the Great Pyramid, but so long as even a handful believe that Al-Qa'ida is true Islam, the "war" against these dangerous people will have to continue until they have been so discredited and reduced in numbers that they are merely a nuisance.

Israel/Palestine? Who are we kidding? Ourselves? Natanyahu is dead set against a two state solution. He is a man of principle, however wrong-headed. He will not change his view of this. What is the alternative to a two-state solution? Is it perpetual helotry for the Palestinians or a secular one-state solution? This is an insoluble conundrum. Will Obama's visit change any of that?

I hope he does not think that his visit will change any of these things. Hard work and hard minds will change them.

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The crux of the problem for the administration is that because the president is in the pocket of the Israel-First lobby of U.S. citizens; has decided against drilling and thereby increased the sway of the oil-rich Arab tyrants over our economy and foreign policy; is increasing U.S. forces in Afghanistan enough to provide more casualties and humiliation but not enough to bring victory; and is pursuing the endless failure known as the “peace process” and therefore needs to keep bribing Mubarak to pretend Egypt does not hate Israel, Obama has few things to offer his audience except words unmatched by deeds. That is, Obama is Bush, Clinton, and Bush with softer rhetoric.

There is one thing Obama could say which might make on impression on Muslims and -- more important -- also be good for all Americans. In Cairo, he could say that America has had enough of costly offensive wars, and that because his first duty is to protect Americans he cannot allow 300 million Americans to be dragged into war by a arrogant, fanatic, and racist foreign leader. Therefore, Obama should say, that if Prime Minister Netanyahu orders Israel’s forces to attack Iran, Washington will break relations with Israel, will not fight at her side in such an offensive war Iran, and will not overtly or covertly resupply Israel’s forces during such a war. Such a statement would attract Muslim attention and, even better, would keep the United States out of the other peoples‘ religious wars.

I posted the piece below the dotted line at www.antiwar.com about ten days ago.

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In just over 100 days, President Obama is on the verge of ensuring that militant Islam’s war on America will be waged for decades to come and its forces will never suffer manpower or money shortages. How did he accomplish so much in some little time? He simply behaved as all U.S. political leaders behave; that is, as an ignorant and arrogant interventionist.

Let us take the ignorant part first. Since Jan. 20, Obama and his band of Israel-Firsters have shown the Muslim world – moderate, conservative, radical, and fanatic – that George W. Bush was no one-off fluke, that Democrats intend to wage war on Islam just like the Republicans. How so? Well, look at Obama’s decisions and actions. They can only be explained by accepting that the new president is ignorant of our Islamist foes, either by choice or because the ability to read is not required to graduate at Harvard.

For 13 years, Osama bin Laden, his lieutenants, their allies, and numerous anti-Islamist commentators across the Middle East have patiently, repeatedly, and explicitly explained to the bipartisan U.S. governing elite and its media and academic acolytes that the Islamists attacking America do not give a tinker’s damn about its lifestyle, liberties, freedoms, or elections. Orally and in print, U.S. leaders have been told what motivates the Islamists’ war on America is the U.S. government’s foreign policies in the Muslim world. Foremost among these are U.S. support for Muslim tyrannies, the U.S. military’s presence in Muslim lands, and unqualified U.S. support for Israel.

And what have Obama and his advisers done with this excellent intelligence about enemy motivation, which, by the way, comes straight from the horse’s mouth? Well, they clearly ignored it, and by deciding to operate in an intelligence-free environment Obama has acted in a way that will intensify and prolong the Islamists’ war against the United States. How so?

On the tyranny front, Obama chose to go to Turkey for his first visit to the Muslim world. That country is formally governed by an Islamic party, but it is actually ruled by a thoroughly Westernized general staff ready to pounce on and dismantle the Islamic regime if its gets too religiously ambitious. Needless to say, Turkey is regarded by many Muslims as having long ago sold its Islamic soul by joining the "Christian" NATO alliance.

Obama then proceeded to acknowledge America’s oil vassalage to Saudi Arabia when, on being introduced, he bowed to Saudi King Abdullah, the master of the Saudi police state. The president also chose to speak his first televised words to Muslims in an interview on al-Arabiya television, the mouthpiece of the Saudi tyranny.

Obama next said that he will go to Egypt to address Muslims in a speech he promised during the presidential campaign. This visit will show Obama prating about the glories of secular democracy and the peacefulness of Islam while standing cheek-by-jowl with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, chief warden of the Muslim world’s premier police state.

On the military side, Obama has announced plans to send 21,000 more U.S. troops to what Muslims call "the defiant land of jihad, Afghanistan." The arrival of those troops – too few to win but enough to slow our defeat – will be portrayed by al-Jazeera, the BBC, and especially the Saudis’ anti-American shills at al-Arabiya as a brutal re-invasion of Afghanistan.

Obama was silent while Israel invaded and wrecked Gaza last winter; has appointed an IDF veteran as his chief of staff – think of the espionage potential in that move; has watched the proliferation of Israeli settlements; and has re-imposed sanctions on Syria and kept war with Iran on the front burner. His Justice Department has also exempted from prosecution Israel-First Americans and their agents in the Congress.

Like former president Bush, then, Obama has kept himself ignorant of the Islamists’ motivation and is playing directly into their hands; indeed, bin Laden, with all his road-building skills, could not pave a smoother path to hell for America. In taking this tack, Obama also displays the abiding arrogance that permeates our governing elite, an attitude that causes them to believe that both Muslims and Americans are stupid. If you doubt this, listen to the sophomoric words of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs as he tries to make sure that no one looks behind the curtain of Mubarak’s tyranny when Obama speaks in Egypt:

"[T]his isn’t a speech to leaders. This is a speech to many, many people and a continuing effort by this president and this White House to demonstrate how we can work together to ensure the safety and security and the future well-being through hope and opportunity of the children of this country and of the Muslim world."

Well, Mr. Gibbs, as one of Obama’s predecessors once said, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Elected on a pledge to end Bush’s wars, Obama has instead ensured their extension by actions sure to further inflame Islamists and, indeed, most Muslims governed by royal, military, or elected-for-life tyrants. As it becomes clear that Obama’s administration is miring America deeper in a war with Islam that benefits only Israel, he and his advisers will repeat the mantra long intoned by Israeli politicians: "We tried our best to better relations with Islam, but we were rebuffed and so now Americans must soldier on in endless wars." This will be a lie. Obama may use softer rhetoric, but he is loyal to the status quo interventionism Washington practices no matter which party holds power.

The only redeeming aspect of Obama’s 100-plus-day foreign-policy debacle is that his deceit is about played out. He will fool no Muslims. His courting of Westernized Turkish generals, bowing to King Abdullah, and joining Mubarak in a cheer for freedom will tell Muslims all they need to know about U.S. intentions in their region. Likewise, Obama’s expanding war in Afghanistan and his kowtowing to Israel and American Israel-Firsters will give the lie to his claim that Washington is now an honest broker in the Middle East.

Americans will be slower off the mark than Muslims, but they will soon see that Democrats share the Republicans’ eagerness to wage unnecessary wars at the cost of their children and taxes. The inevitable need for more troops and money to stave off U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, the increased Islamist attacks on U.S. interests at home and abroad, and – most of all – the unraveling of "success" in Iraq (which, in turn, will prevent a U.S. withdrawal that would be lethal to Israel) will be seen by Americans for what they are: the price of an ignorant, arrogant interventionism that is ruining not only America’s economy and domestic cohesion, but their kids’ future prosperity and security. At this point, a long overdue foreign-policy debate can begin. It will give Americans a last chance to realign the republic’s foreign policy with the tenets of Washington’s Farewell Address and, in so doing, forever break the corrupting power of the Israel-Firsters, individuals who Washington uncannily described in 1796 as "ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens … [who] betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country."

Pray to God this occurs before a cynical, racist Benjamin Netanyahu presents Obama with a fait accompli that drags 300 million Americans into Israel’s war against Iran.

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With his speech this week, President Obama has an opportunity to send a powerful – and critical – message to the Muslim world: America is not at war with you.

The President needs to convey to our friends in the Muslim world that instead of enemies on different sides of a fight, we are united in promoting peace and that we are united in fighting a common enemy – extremism.

I applaud President Obama for reaching out and confronting head-on the anti-Americanism around the world.

Improving our image is a must-do part of our national security and foreign policy strategies.

There are many ways we can reach out to people throughout the world—even those living in nations with hostile leaders—and show them the positive side of America and Americans.

The President’s speech is an important part of that effort. I hope to work with his Administration to increase our investment in these efforts – whether it’s more Peace Corp volunteers, humanitarian food aid, or USAID Foreign Service Officers.

For starters, President Obama is not giving an address to the “Muslim world.” He is giving a speech in (to?) the Arab part of the Muslim-majority world. If we are to avoid stereotypes, it is imperative to remember that there are non-Muslim minority populations in Muslim-majority countries, just as there are Muslim minority populations in Europe and North America. It is also important to remember that Arab Muslims constitute only 20% of the Muslim-majority world.

The president’s Cairo speech will be a moment. Given his global popularity, respectful tone, and inaugural call to the Muslim-majority world for a “new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” President Obama has created great expectations. These expectations, if not met in a methodical and practical manner, could make the Middle East situation worse.

President Obama’s words will have to balance the fundamental tension between authoritarian stability and an emerging rule of law in a part of the world where past approaches to governance—secular, socialist, and sacred—have all resulted in dictatorships, creating disenfranchised populations so desperate that they are sympathetic to, and/or support, extremists (because they are the only ones standing against the governments).

While it is still wise to stay away from tactical details, President Obama should lay out a visionary framework that names and understands the interrelated dimensions of the Muslim-Majority world with particular attention given to Israel-Palestine-Syria-Iran and the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan. How the U.S. practically addresses these countries will establish the precedent for our engagement of the rest of the Muslim-majority world. The speech must point toward incremental steps forward that both engage non-democratic regimes while unapologetically expressing our values in a manner that is consistent with the very best of Arab, Persian, and Pashto culture.

Critically, President Obama should finally acknowledge on behalf of the United States, that if religion has been a part of the problem, it stands to reason that it can and should be a part of the solution. Such a conversation should begin by discussing America’s own short-fallings in understanding the relationship between religion and realpolitik (ironically enough as 90% of Americans believe in something greater than themselves).

For example, thirty years since the loss of our embassy in Tehran, and almost eight years since September 11th, America’s global engagement still has no consistent let alone coherent concept for addressing/engaging the reality of political Islam. What is the logic behind not engaging freely-elected, Islamist, non-state actors (i.e., Hamas and Hezbollah) that commits terrorism while engaging an Islamist state with no national elections that sponsors terrorism (i.e., Iran)? A seat at the United Nations does not make terrorism any more right. More broadly, what is the consistent and coherent concept through which U.S. foreign policy deals with the reality of a political Islam, components of which conduct terrorism?

If we understand that the Muslim-majority world contains our most imperative national interests, how come our counterinsurgency and strategic communications doctrines cannot present such fundamental ideas as good governance in the context of how local populations understand Islam, and therefore justice? Or, why has the Obama Administration failed to appoint a U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom who would work to address issues like these as an integral component of U.S. foreign policy, and as an effective strategy for promoting religious freedom?

In short, it is probably unfair for us to ask foreign countries with Muslim-majority populations to transform their structures of understanding and engagement if we are not willing to do the same.

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Mark Twain once said, "let us make a special effort to stop communicating to one another, so we can have some conversation." I hope this is what President Obama does in Cairo.

Like it or not, despite all the bombs and wars and death, Western Civilization is in a "conflict of ideas" with the fundamentalists of the Islamic world. And while we do not necessarily think of ourselves this way, the United States is the leading example and proponent of our civilivation. What we say, how we say, and what we do matters.

America and the West need to show our ideas are different and better than fundamentalist Islam's intrepretation of the Koran -- no easy feat under any circumstance. We need to show that respect for human life, respect for woman, and religious tolerance are more than just cliches or incantations we say to ourselves. They are our joint heritage and of our joint interest.

Still, the West also cannot ignore the political situation that laid the predicate for this rise of fundamentalism. While we sometimes forget, we have a history with the Middle East. It was not always the best and certainly had its moments of death and destruction Now is the most crucial moment as Islam is at a cross roads. The economic and political benefits of the West are now challenging the long established beliefs of some whose existence is rooted in shibboleths better suited to a by gone age. But they are their beliefs and they are not going to give them up easily.

Moreover, these very fundamentalist people are praying on the angered feelings of a expanding populace long tired of imcompetent and corrupt dictatorships who steal their national wealth and provide them enough food and enough education -- but never what they deserve. In short, the vast majority of the Middle East has just enough food and education to know they are being screwed over. And we, of the West, have unquivocally backed most of the guys who have done this.

Whether or not we can convince even a large minority of the Islamic world of our good intentions going forward -- well that's another story all together. But, we need to start with some kind of consistent conversation to begin to move that way. I would hope that President Obama's speech in Cairo could be that first step.

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With President Obama's popularity throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds already rather high, it is likely that a skillful speech will provide him (and the U.S.) with a positive response that will lift that popularity even higher, albeit to a limited extent. Nonetheless, that bump upwards is likely to be short-lived. The venue probably will be a problem in the minds of some listeners, but that would have been true of most all regional capitals. Consequently, some consideration should have been given before settling on Cairo to delivering such an address in Washington on the eve of (or following) a visit to the region. Increasingly, however, the principal issue in play will become perceived gaps between popular expectations or the rhetoric employed in the speech--as well as other U.S. pronouncements--and the actual performance of the U.S. on key issues, such as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. There comes a point, especially with so many major issues in play directly involving the U.S. that affect various parts of the region, at which the importance of rhetoric begins to degrade noticeably, and follow-through assumes considerably more importance. We are fast approaching that juncture. In that light, the apparent steadfastness recently of the the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in the face of President Obama's entreaties for more extensive concessions with respect to the roadmap already will detract, keeping in mind that the apparent gap between Obama and Netanyahu has been the topic of a large amount of adverse or cynical regional media coverage as well as quite a number of somewhat ribald cartoons. And, as has already been noted, the effectiveness of the President's address will be reduced by the parallel regional media focus on yet another major wave of prisoner abuse revelations, this time including allegations of rapes committed against prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and the attempt to conceal numerous additional photos related to those abuses by the Administration.

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Colleagues,

Whatever words Obama utters likely will have only transitory effect in themselves. They must carry a credible commitment to action; 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 our goodwill toward Muslims. This is a convenient delusion. Indications suggest that Obama will stress his own respect for, and sympathies with the believers in Allah. That could 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 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. 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 intelligent as we, as proud as we, as sensitive to affronts as we.

A last thought: it is not helpful to reiterate incessantly that the reasons the Arabs are in such a mess is because they've been miserable failures for the last 500 years. The connection to the American actions cited above may be obvious to some - not to all.

Michael Brenner

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When President Obama stands at the podium in Cairo to deliver his much-anticipated speech he will represent perhaps the greatest threat to the Muslim – or more accurately the Arab world – since the First Crusade. It matters little what he will say. He represents a fundamental challenge to the political, social and economic structures of that part of the world he hopes to befriend.

Consider who it is that the Muslim/Arab world will see. Barack Hussein Obama. The juxtaposition of the president’s personal saga with his accomplishments is a repudiation of the social and political systems of the Muslim/Arab world. He is a first generation American, a man of color and the product of a broken home who has risen to the position of the greatest power and influence in the world. He accomplished this feat without the advantages of wealth, family relationships, tribal support, ethnic identity or corruption. He is the very embodiment of what makes America and Americans great. Even those of us who did not vote for him must admit to a certain pride in him and in our Nation given his achievement and that of the American voters.

Not only is his life inherently a rejection of the cultures he will profess to respect in Thursday’s speech, so too is his political platform. Yes, I know he promises to be the anti-Bush. The tone and the rhetoric will be different. But this will not be enough. In fact, to claim that Muslims will embrace Obama because of a change in diction is dismissive of the very people he claims to respect so much.

The President’s liberal positions, from pro-choice and pro-women’s rights to the defense of freedom of expression and judicial activism and opposition to government monitoring of its citizens, are a rejection of the practices of virtually every government of the region. He will be speaking in Cairo, capital of one of the Muslim/Arab world’s most repressive regimes. At best he will appear hypocritical; at worst, naïve.

Apparently neither he nor the individual who formulated this week’s question are able to appreciate that there is nothing that can be said or done that will matter much to the so-called Muslim populations. The lives of those who occupy the Muslim/Arab street are so disconnected from the issues and ideas that motivate the President or even their own leaders that the exercise is futile in the extreme. Indeed, much of what he will offer friendship, the exchange of ideas, mutual respect, economic opportunity is absent from their lives. The reason they are absent is because most of the leaders of the Muslim/Arab peoples don’t want them to have these things.

In addition, the President has shown no intentions of significantly changing U.S. policies towards the Muslim/Arab world. Perhaps he will be able to close the Guantanamo prison but the Muslim prisoners will remain in U.S. jails. In fact, he has said he will find and incarcerate more of them. He will reduce U.S. forces in Iraq but maintain a presence their and support for the government that Washington installed. In Afghanistan he is intent on expanding the war while threatening to engage in an orgy of nation building that threatens to create in that country exactly the kind of regime President Bush promised to build in Iraq. President Obama’s commitments to Israel are as strong as those of any president. At the same time, President Obama is putting additional pressure on Pakistan, Syria and Iran. So much for fresh policies.

The peoples of the Muslim/Arab world are not stupid. Neither are their leaders. Both understand that regardless of his impressive rhetorical gifts, there is nothing substantial that President Obama can offer either of them. Let’s also agree that neither the American people nor those of us responding to this question are stupid. We all know that the basic reason that any schism exists between the Muslim/Arab world and the United States is because of the internal inconsistencies in the Muslim/Arab world and the terrorists that those inconsistencies breed. Nothing the President can say on Thursday will alter this basic reality.

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Assuming all goes well, the Obama speech will help the US marginally in the Middle East. While empathetic words are nice, the problem set between the US and the so-called Muslim world is a huge. It not only stems from obvious sources, such as our support for the hated Israel, but it is intimately tied to the war in Iraq and for some, also the war in Afghanistan.

Undergirding these policy-related reasons is the complext history of the Middle East. Many there live wretchedly. Their societies have failed the modernization test and their governments of various stripes --- many of which, like Egypt's are supported by the United States --- have failed miserably and failed for generations. This drives many toward the more radical forms of Islam and revolt against their miserable status quo. We in the United States are one of the targets in the various wars against the status quo. Our freedoms, the looseness of our society, and our vast wealth make us very easy to hate in any case.

In short, bravo President Obama. I salute your courage. But please don't think that the best speech in the world --- if you have one in your teleprompter --- will be more than a single brick in a huge wall that remains to be built.

As with many other things that have been well-advertised and long-awaited, the president’s speech is likely to have less impact than the anticipation of it and the perceptions and expectations associated with the fact he is giving such a speech at all. Given the anticipation, the president probably has at least as much opportunity to disappoint as to satisfy.

President Obama, and the United States, already are benefitting from the widespread perception in most Muslim countries that his election marks a departure from what those same populations regard as the most damaging aspects of the Bush administration’s foreign policies. Much of this is a matter of tone and attitude—of getting away from the unilateralism, the throwing of American weight around, and the portraying of conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world in Manichean, moderate-vs.-extremist terms that do not correspond to how most people in the region perceive the conflicts and that play into extremist narratives. Two more specific policy departures also are important. One is that Obama is associated with ending rather than starting the tragically misguided U.S. military expedition known as the Iraq War. And yes, ending U.S. involvement in this war will help to reset relations between the United States and the Muslim world. The other departure is that the Obama administration has replaced a predecessor that, more than any other U.S. administration, had moved farther and more unashamedly away from any pretense of even-handedness in the conflict between Israelis and Arabs.

The Obama administration’s policies toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, and more specifically the Israeli-Palestinian component of it, will be the single most important determinant in restoring U.S. credibility in the Muslim world, and especially in the Middle Eastern portion of it. Despite all that has been written about how this conflict is more rationale than heartfelt conviction, and not the root of all mayhem in the region, the fact remains that—rightly or wrongly, logically or not—it is the most salient issue by which citizens of the region measure and evaluate the policies and intentions of others, including the United States. After the president’s speech we will hear much about how deeds are more important than words. There will be many references to not just what the president says but also statements such as the one by Secretary Clinton the other day about the need to stop the expansion of settlements in occupied territories. Those making the references will repeatedly sound the theme that such statements are fine but will mean nothing unless backed by the sort of actions that will get more results than similar statements of the past.

The Egyptian locale of the speech is of secondary importance. There will be much commentary, of course, about what the president does or does not say that can be interpreted as pressure on the Mubarak government to democratize. But most Muslims are even more concerned about justice—their conception of justice, which includes fair resolution of the Palestinian problem—than about democracy.

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No matter what President Obama says in Cairo, Abu Ghraib will be a pall hanging over whatever he has to say. Until now, no one knows what precisely happened in our military and secret prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. General Taguba says he's seen images of the rape of a teenage boy. Was rape used by interrogators to break detainees? Our enemies assume the worst, and their version of events is spreading faster than ours.

Let's don't forget that the United States is held to a different standard in the Middle East. We are not yet identified with European colonialism, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the catastrophic break up of India and Pakistan, and on and on. Until we come clean on our secret prisons and torture, establish once again we're an open society, capable of telling the truth, and correcting course, Obama will not be heard in Cairo. There should be accountability in this country just as we demand it in theirs. We are not Iran or Saudi Arabia or even Egypt.