Soccer Dad

Obama arrives

The Washington Post reports on the President's arrival in the Middle East, One of my favorite reporters, Scott Wilson wrote King Abdullah Greets Obama in Saudi Arabia. A few comments are in order.

A day earlier, Zawahiri urged Egyptians to shun Obama during his visit, saying his trip was at the invitation of the "torturers of Egypt" and the "slaves of America." Zawahiri, a doctor by training, was imprisoned in Egypt for his radical Islamist political beliefs until 1984.

According to Wikipedia Zawahiri was convicted of dealing in weapons. I have no idea if this conviction was legitimate, but he was arrested for more than just his political beliefs. He was arrested in the wake of the assassination of Anwar Sadat, so there was at least a suspicion that he was more than just a political theorist.

At a tarmac welcoming ceremony, Obama was met by King Abdullah, the 84-year-old Saudi leader. The leaders then headed to Abdullah's farm at Jenadriyah, not far from Riyadh, for meetings. Obama noted that he "thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek His Majesty's counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East."

But as a non-believer (no matter how he tries to play up his Islamic roots now), President Obama could not go to the place where Islam began, Mecca. That's sort of like a black man not being allowed to use a "whites only" water fountain once upon a time in America. An honest dialogue ought to include mention of this sort of discrimination.

In a statement, the White House said the leaders discussed Iran's nuclear program, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Obama's impending speech. In recent years, Abdullah has asserted Saudi diplomacy aggressively in Lebanon and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was the first to propose broad Arab recognition of Israel in return for its withdrawal from all territory occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, and he has sought in the past to broker unity government agreements between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. Obama has suggested that Abdullah's peace proposal, adopted by the Arab League in 2002 and now known as the Arab Peace Initiative, might serve as a way to revive talks between Israelis, Palestinians and Arab countries, only two of which now recognize the Jewish state.

"[A]ggressive diplomacy?" The Arab Peace Initiative isn't aggressive. Well maybe it is passive aggressive. The initiative such as it is - it isn't really much of an initiative - calls for Israel to take a number of explicit actions and it offers vague promises of normalization in return. So it's hardly a model of aggressive action. An aggressive initiative might have started with an unconditional recognition of Israel and an admission that normally disputes between nations don't involve denying legitimacy.

And when Abdullah was seeking support for his initiative in the Arab world, President Assad of Syria refused to endorse it unless it included a reference to Israel's occupation of Lebanon. Two years earlier Israel had withdrawn from all of Lebanon according to the dictates of the UN. Essentially Assad gifted Shebaa Farms to Lebanon to keep Hezbollah's raison d'etre alive. Abdullah, of course, acceded to Assad's demand. That raises the question of what Abdullah would do if Israel complied with any aspect of his "initiative" and some other Arab leader objected. I don't really think it's a question. Abdullah, would, of course, give in to the veto.

Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian American author and professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, said Obama will now "have to get beyond the generalities and talk about specific polices." He said, for example, that the president should use the word "occupation" to characterize Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories, Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms -- a word he did not use after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

"He'll have to talk about Iraq. He'll have to talk about Palestine. And he'll have to talk about Afghanistan," said Khalidi, a former colleague of Obama's at the University of Chicago. "These are issues that resonate in the Muslim world. And not doing so will rob the speech of the impact it could have."

Khalidi isn't just a professor, but an activist. So instead of taking his words at face value, Wilson could have, perhaps, checked to see if Muslim might have other aspirations. Like, maybe, greater freedom?

For his part, Michael Slackman of the New York Times reports in On Eve of Obama's Visit, Egyptians Crave Deeds More Than Words, and of course the deeds, that Slackman's Egyptians crave, involve being antagonistic to Israel.

"He can say very beautiful words, he can make a speech in which he tells the Muslim world that there has been a misunderstanding, that we look forward to a new era, that we respect you and we love you, but all of this would be considered mere rhetoric," said Abdel Raouf al-Reedy, chairman of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Relations and a former ambassador to the United States. "If he is serious, the test is what he is going to say on the Palestinian problem."

Then Slackman observes:

While his audience is deeply skeptical, it is also excited.

After so many years of feeling bullied and vilified by the Bush White House, many Arabs are greeting President Obama's visit as a historic moment, and an opportunity.

And after so many years of standing up for Muslims around the world (and giving Egypt billions), Americans might look for a bit more understanding from the Arab world. But that isn't how an American reporter will frame the issue.

Then there are two paragraphs in Slackman's report that are fascinating.

First there's:

"All American presidents say they will resolve the problem," said Ahmed Fayek, 22, a student at Cairo University, as he sat outside the freshly painted, swept and landscaped campus where more than 75 years ago the father of Islamic radicalism, Sayyid Qutb, earned a degree in education. "We hope he really does."

Then six paragraphs later there's:

"I am looking at the speech like Nixon going to China or Sadat going to Jerusalem," said Abdel Moneim Said, director of Egypt's premier research center, the state financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "We forget how just a year ago neo-cons were facing the problems in the world in terms of the clash of civilizations."

Well Sayyid Qutb did view Islam as being in a class of civilizations with the West, so it would appear that that the "neo-cons" (read "nasty Jewish Elders who controlled President Bush") were correct.

I do give Slackman credit for his final two paragraphs though.

For Mr. Obama to win favor, however, he needs to address challenges facing the Arab world, from poverty and inadequate education systems to limits on democracy and human rights. He also appears mindful of the need to address issues of democracy and human rights while not seeming to criticize or lecture the authoritarian leaders of the region, whose help he needs.

"He has to address those issues carefully so that it is not seen as another person coming to give us lessons," said Ali el-Garouche, head of Arab administration at the Arab League. "He has to present them in the framework of 'In order to improve the general situation, you must also get on top of this and that.' "

If there will be a change in the relationship between the Arab/Muslim world and the West, much of the change will have to come from the former. For the President to emphasize that would be a demonstration of the "honesty" he claims is so important.

Posted by SoccerDad at June 4, 2009 5:33 AM