I held high hopes for President Obama and his speech from Cairo to the Muslim world. With his Islamic background, President Obama was uniquely positioned to effectively speak some hard truths to the Muslim world. He was uniquely qualified to use the bully pulpit to call for much needed reforms in Islam. And he was uniquely qualified to educate both the Islamic world and the rest of us on the reality at the heart of Muslim violence. My hope was that he would find a way to do those things without being insulting and while expressing an optimistic vision of what was possible.
That is not what President Obama did. He did not merely fail to accomplish what was needed in his speech, but in many ways, he damaged our interests. Indeed, for what good he did with his strong statement on our "unbreakable" bonds with Israel and his mention of women's rights, his pronouncements and omissions on virtually all other critical issues can only serve to make matters worse.
Obama at one point said that “we must face the hard issues.” The reality is that his speech was a study in ignoring those issues, or worse, being less than honest about them. He also made repeated, unforgivable statements of moral equivalency that have the effect of allowing guilty parties to excuse their own misconduct and make any needed change in their conduct less likely. Making such statements of moral equivalency - for example, equating the plight of the Palestinians to the holocaust or equating the mistreatment of women in Muslim society with the problems women face in American society - is counterproductive and appears as weakness.
To be more specific, below are brief summaries of the salient points from my more detailed posts on each issue:
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Where Obama needed to speak the hard truth to the Muslim world about the nature of its problems, he instead merely restated the excuses for those problems common throughout the Muslim world - that modernity is incompatible with Islam and that the causes of the backwardness of Islamic states are external.
Where Obama needed to encourage Muslims to take responsibility for the state of their nations and the evolution of their religion, he was silent.
Where Obama needed to defend freedom of speech and encourage critical thinking about Islam in the Muslim world, he said not a word.
Part 1 - Obama's Cairo Address: Hiding From The Existential Problems Of The Muslim World
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Where Obama needed to promote democracy throughout the Middle East, he instead mouthed the words of multiculturalism and moral equivalence, announcing that the U.S. did not have the moral authority to impose governmental structures on others, marking a return to the failed 'real politik' policies of the past.
Where Obama needed to use Iraq as an example of what was possible in terms of democracy, freedom of speech, and equality, he instead spoke of it as an embarresment and a wrong to be quickly forgotten.
Where Obama needed to announce that he would protect Iraq's nascent democracy, Obama instead announced proudly that he will leave Iraq to its own devices – and ultimately, to the predations of its voracious neighbor.
Part 2 - Obama's Cairo Address: A Walk Back From Democracy & Iraq
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Where Obama needed to address women's rights robustly, he did so tepidly.
Where Obama needed to honestly address the subjugation of women in the Middle East and the violence directed towards them, he instead ridiculously equated their plight with that of women in the West.
Where Obama needed to discuss and condemn the institutionalized subjugation of women by Sharia law, Obama was silent.
Where Obama needed to use the bully pulpit to condemn honor violence for the evil that it is, Obama said not a word.
Part 3 - Obama's Cairo Address: Obama Calls For Women's Rights While Glossing Over Discrimination & Violence
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Where Obama needed to take a bold stand against nuclear proliferation, Obama mouthed the suicidally inane argument that no nation should dictate which other nations may or may not acquire nuclear weapons.
Where Obama needed to speak to the Muslim world about the dangers of Iran's nuclear weapons program and the need for concerted effort, instead Obama spoke about the utter fantasy of a world without nuclear weapons.
Where Obama need to condemn Iran's endless acts of terrorism and their deadly meddling in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, Obama instead announced a moral equivalence between the single act of the U.S. to engineer a coup against the unelected Iranian PM Mohammed Mosaddeq over half a century ago and the mountain of evil acts and the oceans of blood accumulated by Iran's theocrats since 1979.
Part 4 - Obama's Cairo Address: Nukes, Iran & Weakness Writ Large
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Where Obama needed to make a strong and clear statement of our support for Israel, he did.
Where Obama needed to call on Hamas to end violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist, he did.
Where Obama needed to hold the Palestinians responsible for building a functional society, he instead blamed Israel for their current state and detestably gave moral equivalence to the plight of Palestinians with the holocaust.
Where Obama should have been pointing out the ramifications of the fact that Palestinians inside Israel enjoy a far higher quality of life than anywhere else in the Middle East, he instead stayed silent on the ill treatment and manipulation of Palestinians by all of the other Middle East countries.
Where Obama needed to make a clear statement that the “plans for peace” put forth by the Arabs are ill disguised roadmaps to the destruction of Israel, he instead identified Israeli settlements as being the major roadblock to peace.
Where Obama needed to quash once and for all the canard of a “right of return” and call upon all Middle East countries to allow Palestinians to integrate into the countries in which they now live, he was silent.
Part 5 - Obama's Cairo Address: Israel & Palestine – A Little Good, A Lot Of Outrageousness
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Where Obama needed to be honest with Islam and the world about the intolerance of Islam and condemn in no uncertain terms the practice of harming or killing any who convert from the Muslim faith, Obama ignored this while claiming Islam had a history of "tolerance."
Where Obama should have condemned in no uncertain terms the Salafi dogma taught around the world that it is permissible for a Muslim to slaughter those of other religions and to plunder their possessions, Obama was silent.
Where Obama should have spoken against the practice in Pakistan of using charges of blasphemy against the Prophet to justify the disenfranchisement of Christians and theft of their lands, Obama said not a word.
Where Obama should have chastised Algeria for jailing Christians for practicing their religion, he was silent.
Where Obama should have railed against Turkey for their refusal to allow any churches to be built, he instead ignored it.
Where Obama should have condemned the systematic persecution of Christians by Palestinian Muslims in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, his silence was deafening.
Where Obama should have pointed out that non-Muslims of whatever stripe are treated as second class citizens in all Muslim countries, he was silent.
Part 6 - Obama's Cairo Address: Islam's Tradition Of Religious Tolerance?
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Where Obama should have been honest about our history with the Islamic world, Obama gave a completely false picture of the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Islam from the earliest days of our country.
Where Obama pointed out that Morocco was the first country to recognize America, he failed to mention that the recognition came as part of a deal that saw America pay a huge sum of money to ransom a U.S. merchant ship and crew that Morocco had pirated, Obama delibertely gave a false impression by neglecting to mention that detail.
Where Obama should have pointed out that the same philosophy used by the Barbary Pirates to justify war against America, that it is “the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave” non-Muslims, is in fact being taught still today in Saudi Salafi schools and madrassas throughout the world, Obama stayed silent.
Part 7 - Obama's Cairo Address: The Dangerous Whitewashing Of History
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Obama's speech in Cairo was a golden opportunity for our nation, the Muslim World, and the world as a whole. We bear no inherent animus towards Islam. And indeed, our world would be a better and richer one with good and peaceful relationships between Islam and other religions, between the Middle East and the U.S. But there are enough dysfunctional aspects of Islam today that such an eventuality will never be possible unless changes happen. Obama had a chance to be open and honest about all of this in Cairo. He failed. He failed us, and he failed his audience in the Muslim world.
Update: In my points above, I failed to note that Obama needed to also address the mistreatment/execution of gays. Unfortunately, as Gay Patriot points out, not only was Obama silent on that point, but so have been all the left-wing gay groups in the U.S.
Summary - Obama's Cairo Address: What We Needed, What We Got
Part 1 - Obama's Cairo Address: Hiding From The Existential Problems Of The Muslim World
Part 2 - Obama's Cairo Address: A Walk Back From Democracy & Iraq
Part 3 - Obama's Cairo Address: Obama Calls For Women's Rights While Glossing Over Discrimination & Violence
Part 4 - Obama's Cairo Address: Nukes, Iran & Weakness Writ Large
Part 5 - Obama's Cairo Address: Israel & Palestine – A Little Good, A Lot Of Outrageousness
Part 6 - Obama's Cairo Address: Islam's Tradition Of Religious Tolerance?
Part 7 - Obama's Cairo Address: The Dangerous Whitewashing Of History
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