Layalina Productions, Inc. | The Layalina Review: "Obama Establishes New Boundaries"

The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 13, June 05-June 18, 2009

Obama Establishes New Boundaries

From a public diplomacy standpoint, President Obama’s June 4th speech to the Muslim world could very well become “the foundation for a serious, ongoing conversation which could, as the President put it, ‘remake this world,’” argues Marc Lynch for his Foreign Policy blog.

Lynch offers his initial impressions of the speech, calling it “one of the most successful public diplomacy and strategic communications campaigns I can ever remember,” and praised Obama for addressing a wide range of issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nuclear weapons, violent extremis, democracy, religious freedom, and womens’ rights.

Obama’s speech was aimed at initiating a conversation with the Muslim-majority countries, and signaled a departure from the type of caustic relationship of the past eight years, writes Mike Madden for Salon.

Madden, like many others, praised the “thoughtful tone” of the speech and stressed Obama’s powerful invocation of the Qu’ran and other religious texts as a way of stressing unity and peace over the “us vs. them” rhetoric of the past.

“In true Obama form, he balanced criticism of the Muslim world with a recognition that Western powers hadn’t always acted blamelessly toward it, and set off each recognition of the nuances of life in the Middle East with a defense of his own country.”

Some, however, remain skeptical that despite the victory in public diplomacy, nothing will get done unless Islamic states are willing to take action themselves, argues Rob Marquand for The Christian Science Monitor.

Marquand spoke with Karim Emile Bitar, a Lebanese-French international relations specialist and president of the KB Consulting Group in Paris, who thought the speech was “excellent” and yet signaled his wariness that nothing would be done.

“…While this may have been public diplomacy at its best, one should remember that due to decades of mistrust, even America’s best rhetoric won’t make the Arab world rise to the occasion without consistent concrete initiative and actions,” said Bitar.

From a different perspective, in an article for the Huffington Post, independent journalist Derek Flood criticized Obama’s choice of Cairo as the location to give his speech, arguing that, combined with his earlier visit to Riyadh, “Obama is further buttressing the al-Qaeda leadership’s raison d’etre.”

Flood argues that the choice of these two cities as destinations will ultimately undermine Obama’s message of unity and peace due to the perceived human rights violations and inherent corruption of these two regimes.

Still, Flood praised Obama’s nuanced nod to religious pluralism of the Arab world: “Obama’s monologue sought to restore the region’s dignity and sow the seeds of future cooperation while emphasizing plurality and tolerance.”

Another way the White House attempted to reinitiate the dialogue with the Middle East was through the use of technology, including new media outlets, to broadcast the speech to as many people as possible, writes Kelly Chernenkoff for Fox News.

The State Department set up a website which allowed people to sign up to receive free SMS updates of the speech in real-time in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and English. Users could even respond with their comments, some of which were posted online.

Chernenkoff notes that US Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stressed the fact that using new media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace – to provide updates in real-time is consistent with the administration’s desire to initiate an enhanced and interactive conversation, rather than a mere address.

Gibbs said that this was an indication of future dialogue that the Obama administration wishes to set up. “This is not a one-time event,” Gibbs stated.

Following the speech, the White House posted a video of Obama’s speech in its entirety as well as a full transcript online, writes Chris Lefkow for Agence France Presse.

While some did not consider the speech revolutionary enough, the consensus seems to be that it was a step in the right direction in terms of confronting and dealing with many of the most serious issues shaping US-Middle Eastern relations today.

Marc Lynch writes, “As [Obama] frankly recognized, no one speech can overcome the many problems he addressed. But this speech is an essential starting point in a genuine conversation, a respectful dialogue on core issues.”

Go to WhiteHouse.gov for a full transcript of Obama’s speech.

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