Better late than never — that’s the phrase that comes to mind after lis tening to President Obama’s speech on the wave of revolutions in the greater Middle East.
It took Obama two years to move away from another speech, the one he addressed to the Muslim ummah during a visit to Cairo, with Egyptian despot Hosni Mubarak still in charge.
Yesterday’s speech showed that now Obama understands that Muslims are normal human beings who take political action for a wide range of reasons — not religion alone.
In Cairo, the president had tried to flatter the imaginary ummah by praising Islam as the harbinger of reason and science, indeed even of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Yesterday, Obama abandoned much of that mumbo-jumbo — talking instead of the craving of the peoples of the region for freedom, dignity, clean government and democracy.
Since the Arab revolution started five months ago, the Obama administration has vacillated between conflicting positions.
At one point, it wanted Mubarak to “lead a peaceful transition”; at another, it offered to work with the Yemeni despot Ali Abdullah Saleh to “promote a reform agenda.” There was also a time when Syrian despot Bashar Assad was described as “a reformer.” Yesterday’s speech, however, brushed those faux pas aside with a clear rejection of most (though not all) despots.
The president’s message to the despots was: Reform, or go!
Unambiguously, the president put the United States firmly on the side of the revolutionary forces in the greater Middle East. In doing so, he revived the hopes embodied in the Freedom Agenda that Washington launched almost a decade ago. And that is heartwarming to those who fight for freedom in the greater Middle East.
That Obama’s view of the Middle East has changed was most dramatically illustrated by the tribute he paid to Iraq: “In Iraq, we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy. There, the Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence for a democratic process, even as they have taken full responsibility for their own security. Like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. As they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.”
Quite a change from the days when the junior senator from Illinois deemed the future of a united, democratic Iraq to be hopeless.
Though short of concrete policy options, yesterday’s speech showed that Obama now understands one crucial fact — that the United States’ national interest, indeed its security, depends, at least in part, on the establishment of people-based governments in the greater Middle East.
Obama’s offer of economic help to Tunisia and Egypt is welcome. The sums mentioned are paltry compared to the two nations’ needs. But what matters is that the United States is clearly taking the side of the region’s emerging democracies.
Also welcome is Obama’s implicit admission that the Israel-Palestine issue is not top of the people’s agenda in the region and should be treated with greater realism.
Welcome, too, is the president’s tough position on the Khomeinist regime in Tehran. The speech indicated that Obama has abandoned illusions about stretching a hand of friendship in the hope that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would unclench his fist.
Overall, this was a good speech. What is now needed is to develop and implement a new strategy toward a region that is undergoing a momentous historic transformation.