U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated keynote speech in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on June 4, in his latest attempt to reach out to Muslims. Analysts said the speech aims at rebuilding U.S. credibility in the Muslim world, which was tarnished during the Bush era.
Though he has made a successful debut in a Muslim country two months ago, Turkey does not belong to the Arab world that represents nearly half of the Muslim countries. The NATO member, which stands across Europe and Asia and is carrying out reforms for a long-expected EU membership, is deemed by the West as part of Europe. His wide-ranging speech in the Turkish parliament focused on the cooperation of the two allies rather than a comprehensive stance on Muslim issues.
"The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam," the brief message to Muslims has already been widely praised as the first and significant step for mitigating the tensions between the United States and the Muslim world in the past years.
Why Cairo?
The U.S. president chose Cairo as his platform to reach out to both the Muslim world and Arab world is audacious and obvious. Egypt is a country "in many ways presents the heart of the Arab world," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
With almost 80 million citizens, Egypt is the largest country in the Arab world and "one of the largest and most politically significant (countries) in the Middle East," Lisa Blaydes, professor of political science at Stanford University, told Xinhua.
"Egypt has long served as a bellwether for political developments across the Arab world. In particular, political institutions, ideologies, and attitudes that have developed in Egypt often find their way to other Arab states," she said, adding that, however, levels of anti-American sentiment "are very high in Egypt."
Egypt, which inked a peace treaty with Israel three decades ago, acts as a key player in the regional issues. Beside a peacemaker of the long-stalled Palestinian-Israeli talks, the country has hosted five rounds of inter-Palestinian talks to iron out rifts between two mainstream Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas for a unity government.
Obama's decision of making the speech in Cairo University rather than the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which hosted his special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell and top diplomat Hillary Clinton, also implies his determination and readiness to get involved in the Muslim publics.
New engagement
Obama's keynote address is unlikely to lay out a clear-cut Middle East policy, but it is set to highlight a new U.S. approach "based on mutual interest and mutual respect," as he said during his inaugural address, to mend the frayed relationship left by his predecessor George W. Bush who embraced a "go it alone" style.
Al-Said el-Nagar, political analyst and editor-in-chief of Egyptian newspaper Al-Akhbar, told Xinhua that "I think he (Obama) will not give details of a new U.S. plan, since it is not the main aim of his speech... It will be a speech of reconciliation and a new language based on mutual respect and equality, instead of U.S. orders."
"It would focus on the new trend to make relationship with the Arab and Muslim countries... to remove a hostile image left by former U.S. President Bush" due to the U.S.-led invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq driven by his anti-terrorism policy after the September 11 attack in 2001, he added.
Obama's speech is considered as "reconciliation between the United States and the Arab and the Muslim world," Emad Gad, an analyst at Egypt's al-Ahram Center For Political and Strategic Studies, echoed el-Nagar. "He is probably to tell the Muslim communities that they are part of the global community."
Obama is on a swift move as a broker to break new ground in his quest for Arab-Israel peace, which is the core issue of the Middle East. Just a few days before his upcoming visit to Cairo, Obama had a series of meetings in Washington with regional leaders to press all sides to revitalize the suspended peace process.
He told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 18 to freeze all settlement construction, including the "natural growth" of existing ones, while asked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on May 28 to halt the incitement of anti-Israeli sentiments, in a bid to clear the impediments to the peace in the region.
"Obama made it clear from his first week in office that he wanted to deeply and vigorously engage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and appointed Senator George Mitchell to lead this effort. I am convinced Obama, Clinton and Mitchell will work hard together to see results," Hady Amr, expert on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East of Washington-based Brookings Institution, told Xinhua.
Positive response
Obama is far more favored by the people in Muslim world than Bush. According to a BBC poll, 58 percent of Egyptians, 51 percent of Turks and 64 percent of Indonesians believe that Obama will improve U.S. relations with the rest of the world.
His long-awaited speech, which will attract world's attention, especially the Muslim world, is likely to yield positive response if it is based on an equal footing and touches the concerns of more than 1 billion Muslims.
"I am optimistic about Obama and we have been waiting for a long time for such a U.S. president" who is willing to listen to us and communicate with us for a better understanding, Gad said, adding that the speech will help reshape the image of U.S. administration and redefine the troubled U.S.-Muslim relationship.
However, a new U.S.-Muslim relationship in right direction is hardly veered by Obama alone, further mutual understanding and tangible actions from both sides, a unified Arab stance, a breakthrough of Palestinian-Israeli standoff are all needed to spawn a new beginning.
"The Muslim world should speak the same voice and form a united view... It will not be fruitful amid divergences among the Arab countries and the gaps among the Palestinian factions. If the Arabs themselves do not reach agreement, Obama's attempts will fail," Gad said.
"Here comes the opportunity not only for the United States but also for the Muslim world" to forge a new relationship for mutual reward, he added.
(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2009)
