Obama’s Middle East challenge - part I

The combination of speaking in Cairo and with such empathy about the plight of the Palestinians not only linked some of the most pressing issues facing the Middle East and how the world will deal with this region, but also suggested a new paradigm for US policy. Indeed, even some of the administration’s most ardent critics in the Muslim world were not deaf to Obama’s more harmonious tone. As one Arab critic told me, “Obama was full of humanity. He spoke power with humility.” Even those Arabs who had hoped that the president would flesh out his vision and be specific said that his words carried weight and that he came across as “radically different” from other leading US politicians.

Although Hamas gently criticised Obama for not going far enough in voicing support for Palestinian nationalist aspirations, it said it could “build on” his speech and recognised his tone as different from pronouncements by previous US presidents. "There is a change between the speech of President Obama and previous speeches made by George Bush. But today's remarks at Cairo University were based on soft diplomacy to brighten the image of the United States," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. "It had many contradictions, all the while reflecting tangible change," he added.

The president’s speech was good, said the Muslim Brotherhood, but that only time would tell if his noble goal would be realised. The head of its Political Bureau, Essam El-Erian, a rising star, said that the speech was “a good start” and that Obama as president followed what he promised as candidate, “but we’re waiting for action on the ground”.

Some senior former jihadis (and associates of bin Laden and Zawahiri) also praised Obama’s speech. In an interview with a popular Egyptian newspaper, Almasry Alyoum, a top former jihadi, Essam Darbala, said that he and his cohorts view Obama as seeking to bring “real change” in America’s relations with the Muslim world. Darbala, leader of the largest jihadist group in the Muslim world, the Egyptian Islamic Group, which since the late 1990s has renounced the use of violence, urged bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan to make a positive gesture to Obama’s speech and suspend their attacks on Americans.

While many Arabs and Muslims are sceptical of the president’s pledge to “personally” help broker a peace settlement (they say Obama is unlikely to take concrete measures to force hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the construction of new settlements), they concede there is a breath of fresh air in Washington.

The road to Palestine is long and fraught with minefields. But President Obama’s message is beginning to get traction in the Muslim world. His words have unleashed a torrent of self-reflection and soul-searching among Muslim activists and opinion makers of different ideological persuasion. He has stolen the thunder of al Qaeda and turned the tables on the group.

The challenge facing Obama is to translate the rhetoric into policy currency. He knows well that he has to invest some of his precious and limited political capital in brokering an Arab-Israeli peace settlement and extracting American forces from Muslim lands.

Obama must deliver because he has raised expectations among Muslims of a new era of relations with America, of a breakthrough on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Progress toward peace would create a totally new momentum in US relations in as much as broken promises could detonate Obama’s peace paradigm and revive bin Laden’s war paradigm.