Obama's Cairo Speech Is Nice, but Misses the Point

President Obama's speech in Cairo focused on the themes of brotherhood and bridging the divide between the west and Muslim world. Obama explained away the agony of the occupied by essentially arguing that all individuals resisting or angered by American occupation are radical Muslims, who think the west is modern and scary. So while it's nice that we finally have a president that can pronounce "As-Salāmu `Alaykum," and understands Middle Eastern history, Obama misses the point in the very same way the Bush administration kept missing the point for eight years.

Certainly, there is a small percentage of the population that has adopted radical Islam, but the majority of Muslims are moderate. Their only problem with the west is that America has been occupying or bombing large swaths of the Middle East. They're not interested in our President's oratory skills. They want Americans troops off their land.

"No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point," Obama said, and he's right. No single speech, nor any subsequent series of pretty speeches are the solution the occupied are looking for. Afghanis and Iraqis aren't looking for speeches about religion. While it's nice that the President reassured all of us that these military occupations aren't holy wars, they are still military occupations in which untold numbers of women, children, and innocent men will die.

Before Obama's speech, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that America was "deeply hated" and only action, not "slogans," could change that. Even as he spoke about healing these wounds, Obama defended his decision to escalate the troops presence in Afghanistan, and failed to apologize to the Iraqis for the damage inflicted upon their country. Surrounding these notions with some window dressing about all religions being part of the same rainbow won't fool the Iraqis and Afghanis who have lost so much.

On a positive note, president Obama did acknowledge that Palestinians face a similar struggle to the one African-Americans faced during the civil rights movement, and the role played by the United States in the 1953 Iranian coup. This confessional President, who humbly accepted America's wrongs, while siding with the oppressed (but falling short of demanding Israel withdraw from Palestinian territory) seemed more like the Barack Obama whose supporters truly thought he would bring change to America. But those two concessions fail to recognize the larger issue: America is hated not for her iPods and mega-malls, but for her soldiers who occupy sovereign countries.

Obama unnecessarily elevated the conversation to a theological debate when it belongs in the world of (his favorite word) pragmatism. "Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire," Obama reassured countries currently occupied by American forces. A good way to break that "unfair American stereotype" would be to withdraw our forces. An immediate withdrawal of all US troops would not bring peace overnight, but it would place the United States and the Muslim world on the path toward reconciliation.

Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.

Comments

[Wozzeck]

"An immediate withdrawal of all US troops would not bring peace overnight, but it would place the United States and the Muslim world on the path toward reconcilia­tion."

That won't happen because we are there for oil, Israel, and to provide a market for the Military Industrial Complex.
The 'global war on terror" is our excuse to serve these interests.

To admit to the actual reasons for wasting trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of human lives would be blasphemy to the media and political elite.

[Winning09]

Aside from the fact that what you're saying is not what the country voted for last November, you have every right to be so disappointed in Obama ...

[Imago]

Sorry, Allison, you're going to get my ire about punditry, which probably isn't fair, as your insights are no more or less inane than most.

However, this piece is, to me, an example of why I truly am over the political re-hashers, translators, and critics.

I've been reading a lot of responses to Obama's speech, and am struck by how frequently those responses say more about the responder than the speech itself. People want him to reflect their own agendas.

Your understanding of diplomacy is a bit simplistic, Allison. Starting with the fact that the people who live in Afghanistan are more correctly called "Afghans" not "Afghanis" -- Afghani refers to money, not people.

And to state that Obama misses the point in the way the Bush administration missed the point is patently absurd. The Bush administration neatly bundled a Crusade and an oil grab effort into the war against "terror," cynically manufacturing an alternate reality to get there.

And do you really think Barack Obama, who spent formative years in a predominately Muslim country, who has Muslim relatives, and bears an Arabic middle name, needs you to remind him that most Muslims are moderate? Come on.

[danvb]

Well said,

However, to state that this approach is a "bit simplistic" is a gross understatement.

I wish things were as simple as Allison wants them to be, but they just aren't.

[melissamsouza]

I'm glad people with these propositions are far from the actual levers of powers.

[Macready]

He has to build bridges first . . . it is a beginning . . . actions will come . . and they will . . . first on the agenda . . israel . . . the Palestinians have suffered for far too long and they need our help and support

[rosiebond007]

I'm with you - one step at a time !

[authoritarianbootlicker]

Easy to be a critic isn't it?