President Obama came this Thursday to fabled Cairo to 'sell' America and he did sell, largely thanks to his eloquence, his sense of history and his unspoken confession that the Muslim world has been deeply wronged by the United States. He promised a new beginning, turning the page on the bitter past.
His communication was effective because he spoke in the frame of reference of an average Muslim, his ability to do so sustained by his part Muslim parentage, his childhood spent in Muslim-majority Indonesia where he heard the "call of Azaan at the break of dawn and fall of dusk" and his youth spent in Chicago "where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith".
As he spoke he didn't appear to be a stranger to the audience at the Cairo University, nor to the Muslims outside. He had promised this speech from the capital of a Muslim country during his election campaign. He chose Cairo for he considered it as the capital of the Arab world. True, the Arab world is just 20 percent of the Muslim world but there is no denying the fact that antagonism between the Muslim world and the West fundamentally stems from the illegal Israeli occupation of Arab lands, particularly Jerusalem.
Rightly then it is in Cairo that he made his strongest bid to win over the Arab world. Much to the apparent chagrin of Israelis he asked Tel Aviv to stop further construction of settlements, calling Israeli presence in Palestinian lands as "occupation". But there was his balancing act also: he described US-Israeli relations "unbreakable" as these are "based upon cultural and historical ties and the recognition that the aspiration of a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied".
His prescription: both sides should live up to their responsibilities agreed to in the road map peace process. As for the Hamas he wants the outfit to end violence and recognise past agreements. Obama disowned the American invasion of Iraq by calling it "a war of choice" and promised to pull out troops completely by 2012. But that is not the case of Afghanistan where the US would maintain its military presence till "we could be confident that there were no violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case," he said.
What President unfolded in Cairo is not the US government policies. It was his connecting the Muslim world on personal level - indeed a unique proposition given his revolutionary mindset and futuristic worldview. According to him, past is relevant to shaping state policies only if it helps improve prospects of peace and harmony between various cultures.
He is ready to open a new page with Tehran overlooking their "tumultuous history" when US conspired to overthrow a democratically elected government during the Cold War and Iran made hostage the entire US embassy staff. He blamed American opposition to Iran's nuclear programme not simply on US interests but "to prevent nuclear arms race in the Middle East". But he did concede that Iran has the right to access peaceful nuclear power within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
President Obama is the first African-American president of the United States. He owes his victory as the 44th president to a strange mix of circumstances including the Americans' rejection of his predecessor's policies and rise of religious and sectarian extremism which mainly occurred in the Muslim world. Will he be able to deliver on his words spoken in the Egyptian capital only time will tell? No doubt his ideas are brilliant but history tells us such out-of-the-box thinking rarely gels well with American establishment.
We know how President Wilson failed to secure endorsement of the US Congress for America's membership of the League of Nations though it was essentially his brainchild. President Obama's is a dicey call for improved relationship between the US and the Muslim World given the overarching negative influence of Israeli and Indian lobbies and powerful arms dealers' abiding interest that America should never give up the habit of fighting overseas wars.
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