The Cairo Juncture

DISPATCHES FROM THE NEW WORLD

The Cairo speech has come and gone, an American president preaching the Golden Rule to the Muslim world, trying to walk a fine line between faith and reason through murderous beliefs and irrational hatreds.

Parsing what Barack Obama said today will keep "experts" busy for some time, but the words were less exceptional than the act, an American leader presenting himself as both the product of and the bridge between two seemingly irreconcilable cultures.

-Robert Stein

The first question has to be, how quickly can Netanyahu orchestrate a provocation to screw it all up?

What? Too cynical?

Obama tried to make the black/white of the Islamic-rejectionist world into grey, a melting pot of humanity, while drawing red lines on 'violent extremists', in the name of what is right.

He raised the prospects of "progress", against a regional conception of history that can mostly or only conceptualize "progress" through the lens of the past. I liked it, but we'll see ...

SING, O MUSE, THE SONG OF BARACK

One can estimate it will take a day or two for Krauthammer to lambaste the "Alliance for Civilizations", again, undermining his country during what Romney called, as he suspended his campaign, "this time of war".

He put his foot into the thorny settlements issue and into the Holocaust in connection with Zionism. Phones are ringing off the hook, now, no doubt .... Later on, he openly Hellenized, with full New World rapture, paradoxically drawn on his own experience abroad. (A different phone, not his, will ring for that).

One can estimate it will take a day or two for Krauthammer to lambaste the "Alliance for Civilizations", again (?), undermining his country during what Romney called "this time of war", as he suspended his campaign to the sounds of unintentional laughter. Betting is even on whether CK will tritely remind us that "peace" is not a goal of the dogged Palestinians, no matter how much we wish it were -- *sigh* -- raveling the whole conceptualization up in "a blame", once again, so it is fathomable in his one-way worldview.

President Obama sidestepped or downplayed the fact that a history of mistrust is informative on how policy on nuclear Iran is to be formed.

President Obama sidestepped or downplayed the fact that a history of mistrust is informative on how policy on nuclear Iran is to be formed. First, it is more than just mistrust. The Iranian regime, out of fear of discrediting their own dangerously insular Ayatollah, perhaps, has been unwilling to disclose to the IAEA that they did, in fact, secretly pursue stuff they denied publicly. Second, they cannot simply just have the whole fuel cycle for the asking - it's a small concession to the 'history of mistrust' for them to allow for protocols that reinforce or build trust, like the Russian option(s), or others that the IAEA might come up for a more general, global, lawful control of fissile material(s).

He might have taken time to take the Ayatollahs to task for never getting out of Qom, to actually see and listen to the world over which they make such disastrous pronouncements, at missile-parade time and otherwise... He might have cast the implication of proliferation larger than the middle east.

Still, I think it will make a big impact. How many Egyptians, today, may wish they had their own Barack, so to speak, eh?

Women and education are sensible keystones. However, the problem of government corruption looms as large as the backward-looking religious-social hierarchies. Basically, a lot of money still doesn't make it to its rightful destination, in Pakistan, say, and there is no audit.

America doesn't do enough on political asylum for gays and lesbians who are "convicted" in many of the countries in the region, by courts or otherwise.

As an aside, his speech doesn't look easy to translate ... Still, I think it will make a big impact. How many Egyptians, today, may wish they had their own Barack, so to speak, eh?

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