Having made history as America's first-ever black to move into its White House, he is making history also as the only US president ever to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital. But he didn't say anything new. He has said most of these things during his election campaign and even after assuming his office as the forty-fourth president of the United States.
Whatever one may think of its substance, the Obama speech in Cairo was a good gesture to whosoever he was addressing. Having made history as America's first-ever black to move into its White House, he is making history also as the only US president ever to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital. But he didn't say any thing new. He has said most of these things during his election campaign and even after assuming his office as the forty-fourth president of the United States. In Cairo, Obama has now only reiterated the resolve and serious-ness of purpose in his promise for change.
Let us not forget one thing. Obama is America's president and is bound to protect and promote his country's interests. He was elected president not because he was black but because he convinced his people that he would make a better president. He had a clear edge over his opponent because he was younger, fresher, smarter, more energetic, and had a short history with no baggage. But there was another reason for this miracle to happen. America was fed up with George W. Bush and wanted a break from the eight years of his domestic failures and external belligerence.
For American public, Obama symbolised hope for change, and represented an exit from the disastrous Bush era. For the world, he embodied a new America. There is a feeling that for the first time since John F. Kennedy, America has a different kind of leader whose presence at the White House gives a new “facelift” to the US. Obama's triumph was “decisive and swee-ping” because he knew what was wrong with his country and was clear about the remedies. He committed himself “to ending a bloody and pointless war.” He promised to restore “Americans' civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world.”
It was with “message of hope and competence” that he inspired not only the people of America but also those around the world. Barack Obama promised hope for change, and from day one after assuming his office, he has been explaining how he would make the difference in America's policies and in the lives of Americans as well as those of the people of the world. He has been speaking candidly of the Bush era as a bleak chapter in American history. “America, we are better than these last eight years,” he asserted while pledging to restore what he called “our lost sense of common purpose.”
If anything, Obama's Cairo speech marked a solemn epithet recital for the Texas Cowboy George W. Bush era. Eight years of disaster for America and for the world. No other US president has done greater damage to America's intrinsic values and to its global prestige and credibility. He left for his successor a shameful legacy. Domestically, he exceeded all limits in transgressing his over-reach of “presidential prerogative” by justifying snoopy fray against his own people. It was an assault on America's civil liberties. His presidency smacked of France's Louis XIV's famous dictum: “L'etat, c'est moi” — “I am the state.”
In international context, George W. Bush never practised what the US had always stood for and preached globally. America's ideals and values were either ignored or violated with impunity. He accomplished Thomas Paine's vision of a United States great enough "to begin the world over again." Indeed, George W. Bush did begin the world over again. He turned it upside down and threw it in turmoil. The neocon agenda justified fuelling of situations that would allow America's unabashed use of military power anywhere in the world.
George W. Bush also claimed to be in direct communication with God, and said he was driven with a mission from God. “God tells me, George go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did. Then God tells me George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq. And I did.” In the name of God, Bush played havoc with the world. He also had a divine mission to protect and strengthen world's military dictators and authoritarian regimes. He used pliant Muslim monarchs and kings to exploit their own people. He used them as pawns of his global belligerence.
In his Cairo speech, Obama covered seven specific issues of interest to the Muslim world: Violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, Arab-Israel conflict and Palestine issue, nuclear issue in the context of Iranian nuclear programme, democracy, religious freedom, women's rights and economic development and equal opportunity.
Washington's overbearing global conduct during the Bush era, no doubt, had sparked unprecedented anti-Americanism reflecting global aversion to the US unilateralism, its might and power, its self-righteousness, its overbearing international conduct including the blatant use of force in Iraq and elsewhere, its intrusions on other states' national sovereignty, and in Robert McNamara's words, “its contempt for moral and multilateral imperatives.”
No outgoing US president has had poorer approval ratings at the time of leaving his office. What an end for a man who claimed to have started out wanting “to restore honour and dignity to the White House” ending up “scraping all the honour and dignity off the White House.” No wonder, he received a “farewell gift” in Baghdad with two big shoes hurled at him in full force and in public gaze. The first one was a “goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people” and the second represented the torment of all those killed in Iraq and their widows and orphans.
Bush ducked both times. “You know what? It was size 10 shoes that he threw at me,” he was brash enough to brush aside the indignity thrown at him. But Barack Hussain Obama was sensitive enough not to ignore the opprobrium thrown at his predecessor. He could feel the pain of the Iraqi people and admitted on the very first day after taking oath as president that the war on Iraq was wrong and will have to be ended. He chose Cairo, the capital of the Arab League and a citadel of Islamic civilisation as the venue of his historic speech to the Muslim world to announce that the US troops will leave Iraq by 2012. That is fine.
On Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama broke no new ground. He repeated what he has said before. The US will take its AfPak strategy to its logical conclusion, and will leave only when al-Qaeda and Taliban threat to its security is eliminated. He said “We are in Afghanistan not by choice but by necessity.” He also admitted that military power alone will not solve the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why, he said, “we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon.”
In his Cairo speech, Obama covered seven specific issues of interest to the Muslim world: Violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, Arab-Israel conflict and Palestine issue, nuclear issue in the context of Iranian nuclear programme, democracy, religious freedom, women's rights and economic development and equal opportunity. These indeed are the issues of concern to the Muslim world. But the challenge to grasp the nettle on all these issues lies with America, not the Muslim world.
Had the US not walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviet pull out, perhaps the history of our world today would have been different. If the world had remained engaged with the people of Afghanistan, providing them strength and means to rebuild their war-ravaged country and develop a civilised system of government in the post-Soviet era, the situation today might have been totally different. Likewise, as admitted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pakistan has also been wronged by the US for over thirty years now because of its “incoherent” policies and transac-tional approach.
On the remaining issues, again, it is for the US to redress the root causes of global anti-Americanism. It is not hatred of democracy and freedom but the desire for them that has made many Muslims hate the US whom they consider responsible for perpetuation of undemocratic polities in their world. In their view, the “unholy” alliance between authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world and the West, in particular the US, is the biggest barrier to their access to freedom, democracy, prosperity and self-determination.
In alleviating the Muslim grievances, President Obama must not forget “the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak” that his fellow Democrat predecessor, President Woodrow Wilson had spelt out in his famous 14-point congressional speech in January 1918.
Wilson's ghost doesn't have to come to remind Obama that to make “the world safe for every peace-loving nation which wishes to live its own life and determine its own institutions, it must be assured of justice and fair dealing, and that unless justice is done to others it will not be done to us.”
Obama knows this Wilsonian line, and must now grasp the nettle. Instead of fighting wars, let every peace-loving nation live its own life and determine its own ways of life. If anything, help them improve their lives. Droning them out will not solve the problem. It will only prolong everyone's agony. Obama must end their agony.
No outgoing US president has had poorer approval ratings at the time of leaving his office. What an end for a man who claimed to have started out wanting “to restore honour and dignity to the White House” ending up “scraping all the honour and dignity off the White House.” No wonder, he received a “farewell gift” in Baghdad with two big shoes hurled at him in full force and in public gaze. The first one was a “goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people” and the second represented the torment of all those killed in Iraq and their widows and orphans.
Bush ducked both times. “You know what? It was size 10 shoes that he threw at me,” he was brash enough to brush aside the indignity thrown at him. But Barack Hussain Obama was sensitive enough not to ignore the opprobrium thrown at his predecessor. He could feel the pain of the Iraqi people and admitted on the very first day after taking oath as president that the war on Iraq was wrong and will have to be ended. He chose Cairo, the capital of the Arab League and a citadel of Islamic civilisation as the venue of his historic speech to the Muslim world to announce that the US troops will leave Iraq by 2012. That is fine.
On Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama broke no new ground. He repeated what he has said before. The US will take its AfPak strategy to its logical conclusion, and will leave only when al-Qaeda and Taliban threat to its security is eliminated. He said “We are in Afghanistan not by choice but by necessity.” He also admitted that military power alone will not solve the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why, he said, “we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon.”
In his Cairo speech, Obama covered seven specific issues of interest to the Muslim world: Violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, Arab-Israel conflict and Palestine issue, nuclear issue in the context of Iranian nuclear programme, democracy, religious freedom, women's rights and economic development and equal opportunity. These indeed are the issues of concern to the Muslim world. But the challenge to grasp the nettle on all these issues lies with America, not the Muslim world.
Had the US not walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviet pull out, perhaps the history of our world today would have been different. If the world had remained engaged with the people of Afghanistan, providing them strength and means to rebuild their war-ravaged country and develop a civilised system of government in the post-Soviet era, the situation today might have been totally different. Likewise, as admitted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pakistan has also been wronged by the US for over thirty years now because of its “incoherent” policies and transac-tional approach.
On the remaining issues, again, it is for the US to redress the root causes of global anti-Americanism. It is not hatred of democracy and freedom but the desire for them that has made many Muslims hate the US whom they consider responsible for perpetuation of undemocratic polities in their world. In their view, the “unholy” alliance between authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world and the West, in particular the US, is the biggest barrier to their access to freedom, democracy, prosperity and self-determination.
In alleviating the Muslim grievances, President Obama must not forget “the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak” that his fellow Democrat predecessor, President Woodrow Wilson had spelt out in his famous 14-point congressional speech in January 1918.
Wilson's ghost doesn't have to come to remind Obama that to make “the world safe for every peace-loving nation which wishes to live its own life and determine its own institutions, it must be assured of justice and fair dealing, and that unless justice is done to others it will not be done to us.”
Obama knows this Wilsonian line, and must now grasp the nettle. Instead of fighting wars, let every peace-loving nation live its own life and determine its own ways of life. If anything, help them improve their lives. Droning them out will not solve the problem. It will only prolong everyone's agony. Obama must end their agony.
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