Reflections on Cairo

I've avoided any commentary on President Obama's speech to "the Muslim world" from Cairo this morning. I wanted a chance to watch and read the whole thing before I responded, so if I'm coming to completely different conclusions than all the pundits, it's because this is my genuine reaction. I've got plenty of line-by-line quibbling, but I'll post that separately, and keep this response on general principles.

I thought it was a great speech. If its goal was to raise America's approval rating, it will probably succeed, and it could very well cause many Arabs to rethink the reasons behind their knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Obama was more critical of Arab leaders than I expected, and more defensive of America and Israel, and for that I give him great credit. He addressed historical grievances without apology and demonstrated great respect for Islam without kowtowing. He didn't abandon the freedom agenda, but rather defined it more realistically than his predecessor. I got annoyed with his mannerisms and switched to the transcript, but everyone seems to love his style. I guess "robotic" is the "in" thing in rhetoric these days. Cicero would be appalled.

So far, so good. The problems come in the metanarrative. The issue is not his words, but the way he uses them; not the content of his speech, but rather the paradigms the speech concedes. This was billed as a speech to the "Muslim World", and he used the term throughout; he spoke repeatedly of Islam as if it were a country and Muslims its citizens. Insofar as there is a "Muslim World" it exists in the ideologies of militant Islamism, as Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish intellectual writes (via Inside the Asylum)

Islamist ideologues are the only group that strongly advocates the belief that all Muslims belong to a politically untied global community. These same ideologues advocate for the replacement of the modern nation state with a new Caliphate ruled by Sharia law. Why do we legitimize that view by repeating it ourselves? ...A Muslim World is Al Qaeda's conception.

There is a persistent philosophical struggle over Muslim identity between those who argue that Islam is and must be a global political entity and every Muslim's first loyalty must be to Islam, and those who believe that a Muslim can embrace a political identity and remain a faithful Muslim. In how he billed the speech and addressed his audience, Obama accepted the premises of the former. Even while condeming extremism, the very concept of his speech supported the Islamist paradigm.

The second issue is in the categorical confusion. For a speech about the issues of the "Muslim World", Obama focused overwhelmingly on issues of the Arab World, which is home to only a minority of the world's Muslims. Imagine a world leader declares he will address the "Christian World" from Rome, then focuses the entire speech on European issues, and at times even conflates the "Christian World" with Europe. Wouldn't Americans, Uruguayans, Zambians and South Koreans be a bit miffed? I'm quite sure they would be, so lets hope Bengalis, Malaysians, and Albanians are more forgiving.

Finally, by focusing on the Arab-Israeli conflict in a speech to the entire "Muslim World" President Obama acknowledged that the conflict with Israel is a fundamentally religious conflict. The Arab-Israeli conflict is an appropriate concern of the Arabs, the Israelis, and their partners and allies. On its geopolitical face, why should it be a central concern of American relations with Muslims in Indonesia or Pakistan? Again, insofar as Israel is a concern to non-Arab Muslims, it is so because of militant Islamist Jew-hatred that says Jews cannot be tolerated in Dar al-Islam, the realm of Islam. By accepting the premise that non-Arab Muslims have a dog in that fight, Obama tacitly recognized it as a religious conflict, even as he called for a peaceful 2-state solution.

Time will tell what effect this speech will have. I suspect it will blunt anti-Americanism to a degree. But Obama's tacit recognition of the Islamist paradigm will increase the burden on those Muslims struggling to argue philosophically and theologically against political Islam. In general, it confirms my inaguratory fears about Obama and foreign policy: Obama believes that foreign policy is easy, and that his predecessor was just doing it wrong. He is campaigning for America, which is quite welcome, but he also seems to conflate American popularity with America's interests. Warm feelings don't solve problems, however, and even cold allies are still allies. His inability to parse the interconnected webs of implications -- not just of his words but of how and where and to whom he says them -- smacks of cocky amateurism. Foreign policy is fiendishly difficult, and I really hope President Obama doesn't have to learn that the hard way.