US President Barack Obama asserts that “violent extremists” have bred the “cycle of suspicion and discord” between the United States and the Muslim world. In his keynote speech at Cairo University, Mr Obama called for a “new beginning” in ties.
Although he admitted there had been “years of distrust” and voiced an urgent need on both sides to make a “sustained effort… to respect one another and seek common ground,” he did not utter what most Muslims wanted him to say:
a) I will take Bush’s lads out of the Muslim lands, especially Iraq and Afghanistan, and
b) US will desist from interfering in the internal affairs of the Muslim countries.
Most Arabs and the Muslims knew this hyped speech will make little difference in their lives as the US policies of propping up pro-West potentates will continue unabashedly, and the Islamists will never be allowed to govern a tiny Muslim enclave even if they win overwhelming public support in popular vote.
As usual, his starting point was 9/11 as if the US had no hand in the events before it. Mr. Obama conveniently forgot very recent history of US: Muslim divergence:
a) USA role since 1948 in creating and sustaining the Palestine tragedy;
b) Iran vs. Iraq war in which millions of Iranian and Iraqi Muslims perished;
c) Afghan war of 1978-1989 where USA used naïve Afghan Muslims to defeat Soviet empire
d) 1991 Iraq war and subsequent embargo that took more than a million Muslim
lives; etc., etc.
Many Arab and Muslim observers believed the USA left no choice for the “violent extremists” other than to stage something like 9/11after closely watching “anti-Arab and anti-Islam” policies for decades, and blind support for Israel’s blatant violation of Oslo and other peace accords.
Al-Qaida extremists saw the only chance to awaken the US Administration from its imperialist dreams was to drag it into a violent action that would drain out the US economic power.
Mr. Obama, the presidential candidate showed some awareness of the ruinous economic impact of Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In six years they had financially bankrupted the USA. Mr. Obama made a solemn pledge to get out of this quagmire quickly. But as many political commentators and media analysts have pointed out and the Muslims have been voicing their anguish President could not extricate himself from the no-win situation.
‘NOT SO UNIQUE’
Mr Obama uttered: “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.” To appear convincing, he cited the Qur’ān and said Islam had “always been a part of America’s story”.
But what Obama could show was only: “The dream of opportunity for all people.” …Its promise exists for all who come to our shores – that includes nearly seven million American Muslims.”
His complete silence on the destruction of Gaza by the Israeli military, continuation of Iraq war, accelerated build-up of the US forces in Afghanistan, pushing for Pakistani army’s assault on Swat Islamists, continued drone attacks in Afghan-Pakistan border areas, unqualified support for Israel and AIPAC, refusal to bring to justice the violators of the US constitution (including interrogation and torture techniques against Muslims, refusal to release photos of serious crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. in Iraq, continuation of discriminatory policies against the Muslims living in the US, not instituting a review process for utterly immoral, and indecent sentences handed out to the Muslims in post 9/11 frenzy (including for the officials of the Muslim charitable organizations who helped the widows and children),all point in just the opposite direction.
The Muslims around the world see American power structure as their enemy and coordinator of oppressive policies all over the world.
Mr. Obama and his advisers have spent months soliciting opinion and advice from a wide variety of experts, from men of the cloth to Arab businessmen to Persian scholars. In a bid to make sure that Mr. Obama’s message will be heard, particularly among young people, the White House had mounted an unusually aggressive campaign, including a Web site created in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English where people outside the United States could sign up to receive the speech via text message. The State Department translated the speech into at least 13 languages.
However, Mr. Obama’s own advisers had to lower expectations. “There’s been an undeniable breach between the American and Islamic world,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president. That breach has been years in the making. It is not going to be reversed with one speech. It’s not going to be reversed, perhaps, in one administration.”
US DECEPTION OF PALESTINIANS
The immediate reaction from Israel to Mr. Obama speech makes it clear that he would utterly fail in untangling the Palestinian-Israeli knot. Senior Israeli officials complained that Mr. Obama was rewriting old understandings by taking a harder line against new Israeli settlements.
Israel has accused President Obama of failing to acknowledge the “clear understandings” with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honour a settlement “freeze.” The Israeli officials acknowledged that the Obama administration had different ideas about the meaning of the term “settlement freeze.” Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have said in the past week that the term means “an end to all building, including natural growth.”
A former Bush administration official, Elliott Abrams, who was on the National Security Council staff, wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post in April that seemed to endorse the Israeli argument. Mr. Netanyahu has already re-iterated that Israel “cannot freeze life in the settlements,” calling the American demand “unreasonable.” Dov Weissglas, a senior aide to Prime Minister Sharon, wrote an opinion article in Yediot Aharonot what he said had been reached with the Bush administration.
He said that in May 2003 he and Mr. Sharon met with Mr. Abrams and Stephen J. Hadley of the National Security Council and came up with the definition of settlement freeze: “No new communities were to be built; no Palestinian lands were to be appropriated for settlement purposes; building will not take place beyond the existing community outline; and no ‘settlement encouraging’ budgets were to be allocated.”
He said that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser at the time, signed off on that definition later that month and that the two governments also agreed to set up a joint committee to define more fully the meaning of “existing community outline” for established settlements. However, in April 2004, President Bush presented Mr. Sharon with a letter stating, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
That letter, Mr. Weissglas said, was a result of his earlier negotiations with Bush administration officials acknowledging that certain settlement blocks would remain Israeli and open to continued growth.
Of course, Mr. Netanyahu has yet to endorse the two-state solution or even the road map agreed to by previous Israeli governments, which were not oral commitments, but actual signed and public agreements.
What else is buried in the classified US policy documents about the Muslim lands. Of course, actions speak louder than words. Judging from the past events the Muslims would be foolhardy if they believe the US would make good even 1/10 on what Mr. Obama has been promising, and the worst part is that Muslim political establishment will fully endorse all US “anti-Islamist actions.
But the first thing first. Can someone clearly define who are the “violent extremist?” and what is included in the “violent acts?” Who will decide what the Muslims who oppose oppressive tactics of various regimes, demand democracy, and wish to live by their free choice of ethical laws can do and can’t do? Certainly, the US is not a fair judge.