Obama's Cairo-Muslim Strategy

By: Daniel Brumberg

May 19, 2009

Q: There are a lot of Muslims who look at the leadership of Egypt warily...Is...this is a bad selection (for President Obama's speech to the Muslim world)?

Press Secretary GIBBS: (Egypt)...is the heart of Arab world...This is a speech to many, many people and a continuing effort by this President ...to demonstrate how we can work together to ensure the safety and security and the future well-being....of the Muslim world.

Q: I guess my only point is there are a lot of Muslims who think of... the Egyptian leaders as part of the problem.

GIBBS: This is not about who the leaders might be of any certain country; this is about the...common progress that we can make to strengthen that relationship and fight extremists.

The above exchange with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sums up the countervailing pressures that President Obama faces as he prepares for his June 4 speech to the Muslim world. As I understand it, the original purpose of the speech was to offer a master vision of how to narrow the cultural, ideological and political breach between the U.S. and the Muslim world. To highlight these grand themes, some officials proposed that Obama travel to the land of his youth: Indonesia.

But an increasingly dangerous geo-strategic landscape in the Middle East has led officials to rethink the very purpose of the speech. Instead of traveling to Jakarta, Obama will fly to Cairo. There he will do his best—as one observer puts it—to "boost Egypt's standing by placing it at the center of a coalition to isolate Iran and bring about peace...between Israel and the entire Muslim world."

In short, it appears that the administration will subordinate a wider discussion of U.S.-Muslim relations to a narrower focus on security issues, even if this effort has the unintended effect of strengthening an autocratic regime that many Egyptians view "as part of the problem."

Foreign policy is about trade-offs, and in this case, the administration's strategy makes some sense. Dismay over the U.S. failure to push for a lasting two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the single most important factor uniting the diverse peoples, cultures and societies of the Muslim world.

To counter this collective resentment, Jordan's king advocates a "57-state solution" based on achieving peace between Israel and all 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The strategic goal behind this ambitious initiative is to confront Iran with a fundamental choice between supporting Arab-Israeli peace or opposing the governments of the entire Muslim (Sunni) world.

But, we must tread carefully. If, in pursuing a new peace strategy, Washington embraces any Arab regime—no matter how corrupt or autocratic—the U.S. will undercut its long-term interest in addressing the many issues affecting America's relations with the Muslim world.

How can we secure the support of political leader and also signal that the Washington's Muslim world agenda runs deeper than a one-dimensional quest for safety or security?

Press Secretary Gibbs hints at part of the answer when he insists that Obama's Cairo speech will be directed at "peoples" rather than governments. But this is only a start.

If the President wants his words to be heard from the dusty alleyways of Cairo to the skyscrapers of Kuala Lumpur, Obama must insist that the U.S. effort to counter Islamist extremists by promoting Palestinian-Israeli peace is part and parcel of a wider strategy for helping governments and oppositions confront a myriad of complex domestic challenges.

These challenges include the enduring task of building political institutions that give a real voice to the voiceless. Unless the problem of representation is addressed directly, the already wide gap between regimes and their dispirited publics will only widen. This is a recipe for insecurity that Washington and its Muslim world allies can ill afford.

Opens in a new window