The purple prose of Cairo

So President Obama has finally decided which capital he will address the Muslim world from. Cairo. The New York Time reports:

Mr. Obama promised during the campaign that he would make a speech from a Muslim capital in the first 100 days in office, so the speech would fall slightly outside that time frame. However, White House officials would not confirm on Friday that the speech would be in Cairo.

In making such a high-profile address to the Muslim world from Egypt, Mr. Obama is wading straight into the center of the storm of the United States’ turbulent relations with the Muslim world.

Egypt, under President Hosni Mubarak, has a fractured democratic process; opponents of Mr. Mubarak have been imprisoned, and some democracy advocates have been harassed. But the country is also the traditional intellectual center of the Arab world, as well as an important barometer of Arab street sentiment. Because of the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned but tolerated social and political movement that has been embraced by much of the Islamic world, Egypt is also a place where Mr. Obama can try to woo disenfranchised and disaffected young Arabs.

The Times suggests the problem with Cairo, but Eric Trager points out:

If so, the irony is astounding. After all, showing respect for Islam and embracing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are mutually exclusive activities. Indeed, how does one show respect to Muslims while cozying up to a dictator who represses nearly 70 million of them? Alternatively, how does one reassure a secular Arab dictator of his relationship with Washington while also telling his citizens that the U.S. has a “stake” in their well being?

And Abe Greenwald points out that the choice of Cairo is part a more general problem with the adminstration:

In President Obama’s very first interview (on Al Arabiya television) he was deferential toward the theocratic regime in Iran and effusive about the bravery of the oppressive Saudi king. He offered not a word of encouragement or solidarity for the Muslim world’s reform movements. Then came Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of human rights concerns in China, silence on human rights in North Korea, hints of easing sanctions on Burma and Sudan, and a loosened trade relationship with the Castro dictatorship. People focused on the Venezuelan handshake, but Obama’s biggest shame in Latin America was his failure to criticize Hugo Chavez’s bullying domestic policies. A rebuff of Hosni Mubarak now would look bizarrely inconsistent.

Actually, the Washingto Post does point out the Cairo problem pretty explicitly.

By selecting Egypt, Obama could expose himself to criticism in the Arab Middle East for showing tacit support for President Hosni Mubarak, who has governed the country for nearly three decades with scant tolerance for political opposition. The 81-year-old Mubarak, who is scheduled to meet with Obama in Washington this month, has used his security services to harass and detain political rivals and is preparing for his son to succeed him.

U.S. support for Mubarak and other unelected Arab leaders has been interpreted across the Middle East as a hypocritical element of American foreign policy, particularly in the past eight years, during which the Bush administration made promoting democracy the centerpiece of its diplomacy in the region.

The Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, has used the U.S. support for Mubarak, who has jailed members of the Islamist opposition for years, to whip up anti-American sentiment in Egypt and beyond.

(This is consistent with the Post’s editorial position on Mubarak.)

However the Post then goes into the reasons why President Obama feels the need to reach out the Muslim world:

Obama arrived in office eager to remake U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

Three key factors have contributed to millions of Muslims’ bitterness toward the United States: the Bush administration’s war in Iraq; detention and interrogation policies — embodied by the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib; and a tilt toward Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the most-populous Muslim country, took some immediate steps to change the U.S. image among Muslims. He ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay brig within a year, banned interrogation techniques he has called torture, and granted his first interview as president to the al-Arabiya satellite channel.

During a visit to Turkey last month, Obama told that predominantly Muslim nation’s Grand National Assembly that the United States “is not and never will be at war with Islam.”

Now we all know about the protests in Muslim countries against the American invasion of Iraq or the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, but remarkably these are about the only things that people in Muslim countries protest, because these serve the purposes of the authorities in those countries. The depredations suffered by the populations of these countries at the hands of their own rulers are never protested.

Are Syrians really complaining that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded when they know if they run afoul of Assad they could have their fingernails pulled out?

(Furthermore, that paragraph could have been written: “According to Democrats many reporters and foreign policy professionals, the reason that Muslims resent the United States is because of the Bush administration policies of invading Iraq, employing harsh interrogation techniques and siding with Israel.”

And while the President Obama has promised to change many of the policies of the Bush administration that supposedly so offend the Muslim world, he’s nonetheless practicing those very same policies now that he’s in power.)

But the question is, even if Cairo is a bad choice to bridge the gap with the Muslim world, what could President Obama say that would assuage the “Arab street?”

He could, of course, say that he differed sharply with the previous administration on the subject of Iraq and would have sought a solution that would have concluded an agreement leaving Iraq’s honor intact and without invading. (Whether or not that would have been possible is irrelevant. And of course that would be a slap at the current government of Iraq.) And he could say that he would have dealt with the abuses at Abu Ghraib more swiftly than President Bush did. Finally he could say that he would push for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by taking steps to ensure the creation of a Palestinian state during his term in office.

What he really should say is that he looks forward to the day when a Muslim living in Baghdad or Cairo could have the same opportunities as one living in Haifa or that a Jew could tour Mecca as freely as he tours New York. I just wouldn’t count on that happening.

The President’s speech to the Islamic world will be another unnecessary apology and some level of non-threatening rhetoric intended to smooth ruffled feathers. It won’t, of course. And we’ll have reporters out in the streets of Damascus or Amman faithfully recording statements from “people in the street” to the effect of “his words are nice but we will wait to see if his actions match his words,” but not a word of skepticism towards their own rulers.

In other words for all of the President’s flowery language, it will be an empty exercise. Like his interview on Al Arabiya or his Norwuz message. It won’t change anything diplomatically, though it may improve his poll numbers in lands where the people are not allowed to express their preferences for their own leaders.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.