Obama's speech: good but not enough By Rami G. Khouri

Obama's speech: good but not enough
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, April 08, 2009

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=100763



President Barack Obama's speech to the Turkish Parliament Monday was another milestone in what appears to be his continuing attempt to steer the American ship of foreign policy in new directions. He made some important new statements and changes in style, while repeating some silly old bad habits and simplistic insults. If he intended to address the Islamic world and signal a more humble, realistic policy toward majority-Islamic countries, he gets high marks for intent and execution, and medium marks for substance.

He reminded us once again of three linked issues: that the United States has serious problems with some Muslims, and with some quarters in the Islamic world; that it is trying to acknowledge and redress those problems with a refreshing combination of courage, humility and honesty; and that it still suffers deep structural flaws in achieving this worthy goal.

The most significant thing about Monday's speech in my view was the disparity between how Obama addressed all the tough issues that matter to Turkey - European Union admission, relations with the Kurds, Armenian history, Cyprus, democracy consolidation, and the situation in the South Caucasus - while offering only soft rhetoric and hollow generalities when speaking about American relations with the Islamic world. Specificity reflects seriousness, while generalities reflect hesitation.

Obama should be commended for tackling these issues to begin with, but he should be chided for resorting to simplistic nothingness in four areas. The first was his meaningless statement that "the US is not at war with Islam." He might be surprised to learn that neither is Islam at war with America or Americans. He would have been much better advised to stick to the facts by noting that a very small number of criminal Muslims attacked the United States, and that his country was justified in fighting them and trying to bring them to justice. By addressing "Islam" as a protagonist, he recklessly transformed specific quarrels into civilizational, religious and cultural battles.

His second mistake was to speak glowingly of respect for the Islamic faith and all that it has contributed to the world, while always framing his words in the context of terrorism and warfare. He should instead have spoken of the rights that individuals and countries expect to enjoy in a world governed by law and mutual commitments to sovereign rights. Muslims don't need an American president or anyone else to tell them that they have a fine cultural heritage; they know that, simply by living their faith and values. They want to hear from the leader of the world's strongest nation that he respects a rule of law applied equally, fairly and consistently to all countries, regardless of their religion.

The third mistake he made - a genetic weakness of all American officials, it seems - was that he framed the tensions between some Muslims and some Americans in terms of religious differences, rather than acknowledging that most criticisms of the US in the Arab and Asian heartland of Islam reflected anger with US foreign policies. The problem is not faith; it is foreign policy, specifically American policies supporting Israel or supporting dictators and autocrats throughout the Arab and Asian region. By evading these core problems, he ended up slightly comically and unsuccessfully flailing for substitute issues to address.

The fourth weakness in Obama's speech and his general approach was to single out Iran as a potential menace for allegedly wanting to develop nuclear weapons, and chiding Iranian leaders like a school teacher talks to children. This totally negated his remarks about wanting to deal with Iran on the basis of "mutual interests and mutual respect." If that really were his intention, Obama would instead have spoken about working with Iran and others to implement all relevant international laws and regulations to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, while affirming every country's right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

These criticisms of Obama's shortcomings should not detract from his commendable change in tone and direction from the horrors of the George W. Bush years. One intriguing new twist in his remarks was the insistence three times in one passage that Israelis and Palestinians both had to honor their past commitments, change their ways, and make new moves to achieve the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security. This is not new, but it does seem another small shift toward repositioning the US as a credible mediator seeking to work simultaneously for the rights and interests of both Israelis and Palestinians. Rarely has a US president spoken so clearly about both Israelis and Palestinians needing to change their ways to achieve peace.

We have here only vague hints couched in nice rhetoric, but they are intriguing hints that should be watched for signs of policy that affirm them. Large ships adjust their course slowly and incrementally. Obama turned the wheel a few degrees in Turkey this week.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.