Obama Will Announce a New Plan for Peace in the Middle East

It is expected that the U.S. president, who shows high approval ratings in polls, will make a speech next week.

The U.S. president, Barack Obama, who enjoys strong popularity thanks to the military operation that took the life of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, will deliver a speech next week concerning a new plan for peace in the Middle East, as detailed by the White House.

The head of state will speak at a time when fighting persists in Libya and violence grows in Syria and other countries in the region, and also while the sons of bin Laden launch new accusations against Washington.

In a statement sent to The New York Times, the sons of bin Laden labeled the attack on the residence at Abbottabad, Pakistan illegal and demanded a U.N. investigation. The U.N. stated today that it needs more information to investigate the incident, for which they have contradictory official versions.

The White House retorted that the U.N. Charter authorizes countries at war — as how the United States considers itself against al-Qaida — to defend itself legitimately. They are actions that are “entirely justified,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today.

During his press conference, Carney also announced the new discourse by Obama regarding the Middle East, which some consider to be the second part of the message delivered in Cairo in June 2009. It is estimated that the speech will take place before the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, who on May 24 will address the U.S. Congress, and not long before the G-8 summit in Deauville, France.

“In the near future,” said Carney, the president “will discuss Mideast policy.” The spokesman said the message shall be addressed “to a broader audience than just the Arab world.”

Also today, The Wall Street Journal published an interview with the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications in the White House, Ben Rhodes, who said, “It’s an interesting coincidence of timing” between Obama’s speech and the death of bin Laden, “that you have a model emerging in the region of change that is completely the opposite” of that proposed by the head of al-Qaida.

Meanwhile, a pollster GfK survey put him at a 60 percent approval rating, the highest rate in the last two years. Now more than half of Americans say Obama deserves re-election. More modestly, the average of national surveys prepared by a specialized Internet site, RealClearPolitics, gives Obama a 51.8 percent approval, still a rate well above the low popularity that afflicted the president only a few weeks ago.