The president's morning speech in Cairo was quite a thing (Adam has the transcript and video here). At times it felt like a theological discussion, with its frequent and surprisingly deft use of scripture from many faiths. (Although, to be a little unfair, despite the excellent use of verses from the Qur'an, it did read like 'the top five verses preferred by Westerners.') The use of Obama's background also worked well. At other times, it was a Clinton-like laundry list of policies (the micro-finance reference felt focus grouped). But over all, I think it will achieve its primary goal of convincing Muslims around the world and particularly in the Middle East that the United States can be a positive force in world affairs, or at least that the United States should be given more forbearance to demonstrate that it can be a positive force in world affairs.
Less than any specific section of the speech, the strongest part was the theme of speaking private truths publicly. One of the great weakness of political speech, and particularly political speech in a foreign country that comes with a lot of diplomatic considerations and political tension, is the desire to avoid public controversy. I saw that a lot writing this piece about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's trip to China, where many of my sources would say, look, everybody knows that nothing about China's currency and investment in American reserves is changing soon, but that didn't stop Geithner from spending much of his time focused on those issues.
Obama didn't seem to shrink from hard words on any of the issues in the speech -- with one exception, to be discussed. I think his audience in the Middle East will be particularly impressed with the section on Iraq , where he acknowledges it was a war of choice that divided the country, but declined to emphasize his own long-term dissent from the war. Why is that important? Obama is representing the United States in this speech, and people in the Middle East will expect him to own that war whatever his own views on the issue. His ultimate lesson from the war, quoted in the headline, will reassure many abroad, though it will worry liberal hawks and neo cons. Overall, though, the defense of America's reputation and actions ought to satisfy the conservative nationalists who populate the airwaves.
The discussion of Israel and Palestine was mature and forthright that will probably strike both sides in that conflict as overly critical, which is, I think, as it should be. But my least favorite part of the speech was the discussion of democracy and human rights. It started off well by discussing of America's role in promoting democracy, but notably lost its truthiness by declining to point out America's role in promoting authoritarian governments, particularly Egypt's own regime. (Millions of dollars in democracy promotion aid were eliminated this year). It's not hard to understand why he chose to go the diplomatic route on democracy promotion, given recent history and his administration's tendency to avoid outright hypocrisy on foreign policy issues by remaining silent while pursuing realist policies, but it was a discordant moment within an otherwise blunt speech.
Another important criticism on this front was his lack of discussion of Darfur. He mentioned the situation there, but failed to explore the possibilities of improving it -- read Barron YoungSmith's excellent post on what Obama could have said about the humanitarian crisis.
There will also be plenty of criticism of the Obama classic "one hand, then the other" formulation. I'm still not tired of it, since the world is a pretty complicated place that doesn't reduce well to polarities. But matching complex ideas with the right actions is very difficult compared to cheerfully pursuing a simple and ultimately self-defeating strategy. As many in the Middle East and at home have pointed out, this speech will be nothing without the policy changes to follow it. This can only be a beginning. But it is a very strong start.
-- Tim Fernholz
