ANALYSIS:The US president is to make a symbolic address to Muslims worldwide from Cairo
PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world from Cairo University on Thursday is the most keenly anticipated foreign policy address of his presidency and a key moment in his effort to restore his country’s global image.
The speech will be mined for information on everything from the president’s plan for Middle East peace to the strength of the new administration’s commitment to promoting democracy and human rights.
Coming on the same day as elections in Lebanon and a week ahead of Iran’s presidential election, Obama’s remarks will also be studied for their impact on voters in both countries.
The White House says the speech should be viewed as the latest in a succession of gestures towards the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims since Obama’s inauguration in January.
“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” the new president said in his inaugural address.
He gave his first interview as president to the Arabic language Al-Arabiya television network, declaring that it was his job to communicate to Muslims that “Americans are not your enemy”.
Obama broadcast a message to the Iranian people for the Persian new year, and in an address to the Turkish parliament in April he repeated the message that “the United States is not at war with Islam”.
The US invasion of Iraq, seven years of the “war on terror” and President George Bush’s perceived failure to press for peace between Israelis and Palestinians have left the US deeply unpopular among Arabs and Muslims.
Some 77 per cent of Arabs have an unfavourable attitude to the US, according to the 2009 Arab Public Opinion Survey published last month by the University of Maryland and Zogby International.
The poll, which was conducted in six Arab countries, found that Obama was more popular than his country, with 45 per cent holding a positive view of the president, while 28 per cent are neutral about him.
The son of a Muslim father, Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, which has the biggest Muslim population in the world. During last year’s election campaign, any reference to Obama’s connection with Muslims was condemned by his supporters as a smear.
Since his inauguration, however, the president has spoken frequently about the fact that some members of his family are Muslims and that he counts Muslim-Americans among his friends.
Shibley Telhami, who conducted the Arab Public Opinion Survey, says that Arabs and Muslims are willing to listen to Obama, they are hopeful but “they are not in love”.
Many will be encouraged by the president’s decision to withdraw US forces from Iraq and to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay – even if the fate of the 240 detainees remains unclear.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a festering sore at the heart of the Middle East, however, and many Muslims in the region will judge Obama on his actions in promoting a peace settlement.
Bush avoided engaging with the issue during the early years of his presidency but launched a peace initiative in Annapolis during his second term in office. The initiative has made little progress, perhaps because Bush left negotiations essentially up to the Israelis and Palestinians themselves, exerting little pressure from outside.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza over the new year further soured relations, and Washington’s failure to condemn Israel’s actions reinforced the view among Arabs that the US is not an honest broker in the region.
Obama has taken a more pro-active approach, appointing former senator George Mitchell as a special representative for the peace process.
The president and secretary of state Hillary Clinton have surprised sceptics by bluntly telling Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stop all expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The US administration is expected to unveil a new peace initiative over the coming weeks and the president has identified Middle East peace as a US national security interest.
White House officials say Obama will address the Israeli-Palestinian issue during Thursday’s speech in Cairo but he will not give details of the peace plan.
American public opinion opposes Israeli settlement activity and favours the creation of an independent Palestinian state. However, Congress remains adamantly opposed to direct talks with Hamas before the Islamist group renounces violence and recognises Israel’s right to exist.
Among the challenges Obama faces as he seeks to reshape the US relationship with the Muslim world is determining how Washington should engage with political Islam.
British foreign secretary David Milliband suggested last month that western powers should move beyond “the binary division between moderates and extremists” when dealing with the Muslim world.
Obama has signalled his openness to a new engagement with Iran’s government and Washington is considering some engagement with elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Democracy activists in the Arab world will be listening carefully to what Obama has to say about human rights in the region.
In a speech in Cairo in June 2005, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice challenged Egyptians to “lead and define” a democratic future in the Middle East.
The Bush administration abandoned its so-called Freedom Agenda after Hamas won free Palestinian elections and the Muslim Brotherhood polled strongly in Egypt. Obama has shown little enthusiasm for democracy promotion and Clinton made clear during a recent visit to China that the administration would not allow disagreements over human rights to interfere with economic co-operation.
The expectations surrounding Thursday’s speech are so great that even Obama’s oratorical gifts and political cunning may be inadequate to fulfil them.
The speech’s most powerful impact may lie in the fact that it is happening, and that the first US president to address the Islamic world from a Muslim country is a black man called Barack Hussein Obama.