Speech Reaction - UPDATED Posted by Michael Cohen

Couple of meta reactions:

The first 15 minutes of the speech in which Obama talked about the links between Islam and the United States - and the need to break down incorrect stereotypes between the two cultures - was very strong if not a bit repetitive. In some ways, it wasn't really new. it's the sort of rhetoric you might have heard from George W Bush. But coming from Barack Obama it had a level of credibility that no speech by an American President ever has before. The sentiments were not original, but they took on far greater significance because of the speaker.

But then the President perhaps tried to do too much; it bordered on Clintonism. He identified six areas of tension between the US and the Muslim world. I might have cut it down - and in particular I thought the last section on economic development and opportunity was underwhelming.

But the President's words on the Arab/Israeli conflict were magnificent. These two grafs were particularly good:

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered. . .  To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. . .  Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society

Good tough rhetoric, with real political markers laid for both sides. Israel stop the settlements; Hamas you want to seat at the table - stop the violence.

But on democracy, the President's words were a bit uneven. It felt like Obama was apologizing for the democracy promotion excesses of the Bush Administration, rather than laying out his own unique vision for the issue or making a strong call for political reform. He didn't lay down markers, he didn't name names, he didn't talk about the need for a political space for opposition groups. But perhaps I am quibbling, because he did say this:

America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people.This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy

Wow. If I'm reading this correctly, the President is saying that the United States will welcome ANY peaceful and law-abiding government.  For a speech given in Cairo that of course refers to Islamist parties. What's more he is telling Islamist parties, as long you play by democratic rules and treat democracy as more than just a route to power- but a system of government and a means of ensuring accountability -- you will have the support of the United States. And considering that members of Muslim Brotherhood were invited to the speech . . . well this does seem like kind of a big deal and a much needed corrective on the general US antipathy toward engaging with Islamist parties.

I can't say that I heard everything I would have liked to hear on democracy support, but this strikes me as a pretty impressive start on the President's part.

UPDATED - Over at the Plank, Larry Diamond offers a more substantive critique of the President's attention to democracy in his Cairo speech:

But much remains unsaid, or disappointingly vague. Ayman Nour, the Egyptian democracy advocate who was imprisoned for three years for having the temerity to challenge Egypt's modern pharaoh, Hosni Mubarak, in the 2005 presidential election, remarked after the speech: "It was actually better than we expected, but not as good as we hoped. ... His stance on democracy was very general, a bit weak, we hoped for more detail."

Democrats in Egypt and other Arab (and Muslim-majority) countries wanted to hear more. They wanted some specific criticism of authoritarian practices. They wanted Obama to call for the release of political prisoners and an end to the persecution (and torture) of regime opponents. Without violating his vow not to "impose" a system of government on another nation, Obama could much more clearly have aligned himself with Egyptians who are seeking such basic human rights as freedom of speech, freedom to organize, and an independent judiciary. These are the critical foundations for democratic progress, however gradual, throughout the region.

In a pre-trip interview, President Obama stressed that he did not want to be seen as "lecturing" other governments, or characterizing their leaderships. Perhaps he appealed in private to President Mubarak for progress on human rights. But if he was not prepared more explicitly to speak truth to power in this heart of the Arab world, it is reasonable to ask whether Cairo was the right place to give the speech.

I'm not sure that Obama could have gone quite as far as Larry suggested, but the notion that he should have "aligned himself with Egyptians who are seeking such basic human rights as freedom of speech, freedom to organize, and an independent judiciary" is spot on. I really like what Obama said about the role of Islamists in the region's political future, but it's hard to quibble with Larry's argument. If Obama is not prepared to push the Egyptians harder on political reform - or make aid conditional - this speech could end up being seen as a missed opportunity.

Comments

[Zathras]

Well, sure. President Obama could have "aligned himself" with Egyptian political liberals -- a fairly small number of people in that country. He could have struck a pose. Then what?

That was one problem with giving this speech in Cairo, or indeed in any Arab capital. Power there is an either/or question -- either you have it or you don't. If you have it, and you think a free election might cause you to lose it, you're going to have a strong interest in putting up obstacles to a free election. Maybe that can change someday. The question is whether it can change in a time frame short enough to justify a major commitment of an American administration's time and effort.

In a way, it's like invading Iraq back in 2003. This would have been a peachy idea under the assumption that nothing that could go wrong, would go wrong: the government would not distintegrate, the neighbors would cooperate, the insurgency wouldn't develop, the remnants of the old regime would help build a better new regime. If nothing had gone wrong after Baghdad fell, the Iraq invasion would be remembered as a brilliant stroke of history rather than as the first stage in an epic fiasco that saw endless turmoil for Iraqis and everything blamed on the Americans.

Promoting democracy in Egypt might lead to a peaceful transition, no government reaction, no peaceful Islamists deciding not to be peaceful, no persecution of religious minorities, no turmoil producing suffering for Egyptians with everything blamed on the United States. Or, some of the things that could go wrong, might go wrong. America would have even less control over the situation than it did in Iraq. Obama could have dealt with this situation by giving his speech to Muslims from the capital of an actual Muslim democracy, an example of the kinds of things the more backward Arab political cultures will have to achieve for democracy there to be possible. A message from the American President in Indonesia would sound less like a lecture to Arabs, or least less like a lecture only from the United States.

Or he could have given the speech he did. Less than some had hoped for, more than they expected; maybe not the best first step, but a first step nonetheless.

[Dan Kervick]

Strange. I thought the initial section of the speech was the strongest part, and thought the part of the speech relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was almost certainly the weakest and lamest. The discussion of that conflict, at least where the Palestinians were discussed, was awkward, impossibly vague and indirect, and filled with embarrassingly detached and passive locutions. Obama seems unwilling to address the reality of the Palestinian situation in anything resembling frank and concrete terms. Apart from the pretty image of Jews, Christians and Muslims peacefully enjoying Jerusalem together, he offered almost nothing that could be considered even a dim, hazy view of what the the two-state solution he supposedly supports might look like.

The Palestinians we learn have "endured" something or other, and "suffered" something or other, and been "humiliated" by something or other, and been "dislocated" by some unnamed agency. They also have various indefinite "aspirations".

There is apparently a history here behind the participles, but the history, one gathers, is unmentionable. We are told it was "painful". The whole passage reads like an awkward visit to the home of a friend's parent, who alludes darkly and allusively over dinner to some unnamed diabolical events and family shame, but leaves everyone wondering, "What was that all about?"

The Palestinian displacement was in some way "brought by Israel's founding". I guess it was some kind of unintended side-effect or by-product. You would never know that that displacement has continued almost unabated since the long-ago founding, and is ongoing as we speak.

And can anybody tell me what is the concrete content of the following paragraph:

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

That paragraph can be read in so many different ways as not to have been worth saying at all. For a speech that purported to be about moving forward by "saying openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors", Obama passed the buck dreadfully here.

The analogy with American slavery was poorly thought out and inapposite. Surely people around the Middle East are scratching their heads about that one. For while it is true that violence didn't win African-Americans "full and equal rights", the world cannot have failed to notice that violence won American blacks their emancipation from slavery, and secured passage of the vital constitutional amendments which were a direct consequence of Union victory in a savagely violent civil war.

Obama has weirdly decided that he doesn't want to talk about terrorism anymore, and instead leans his appeal on the generic concept of violence. As a result, the blowing up of an old lady on a bus and the armed defense of one's home against a soldier who is stealing one's land and invading one's country are grotesquely smeared together as equally "wrong" acts or "resistance through violence and killing". Apparently, Palestinians are uniquely lacking in the rights guaranteed to all people under international law, and must be thoroughly pacified and unmanned before progress can be made.

For what it's worth, I thought the section on democracy and rights struck the appropriate tone. No US agendas or "visions" were offered, but there was a general defense of the duty to secure the rights of women and minorities, allow free expression, and extend opportunity and prosperity to all. It was just right.

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