Monday, June 1, 2009

Barack Obama Extends Hand Of Friendship To Muslim World

President Barack Obama, right, speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Moshe Milner / AP

From Times Online:

President Obama will seek to forge a new American relationship with the Muslim world this week during a long-awaited speech in Egypt in which he will heap praise on Islamic culture and give a personal commitment to a new era of co-operation.

The address in Cairo will harness Mr Obama’s own ancestral ties to the religion as he begins the daunting task of reducing the deep mistrust of America felt by many of the world’s one billion Muslims.

The speech will be rich in Mr Obama’s lofty rhetoric but at its core it is guided by a hard-headed, hugely ambitious foreign policy objective: to mobilise support in the Muslim world to help him to achieve peace in the Middle East and an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

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My Comment: I hope that this will be the first step among many for the U.S. to engage in advancing peace in the region .... but I must also confess that I am very skeptical. The problems in the Middle East are problems within the Middle East, and outsiders like the U.S. can play a role .... but it can never be a significant one.

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