Obama on the Middle East: “A Historic Speech” by Virtue of its Philosophy

Interview with Vincent Geisser, specialist on the Arab world, researcher at the Institute for Research and Studies of the Arab and Muslim World.

On May 19, some were expecting a new version of the Cairo speech from Barack Obama. What is your opinion?

This speech is very different from the one in Cairo, which was much too overrated in 2009. It had been written as a break from the Bush period, the idea being that of a progression from the theory of an axis of evil to Obama’s desire to lay the foundations for a new relationship with the Arab-Muslim world. However, something that we hadn’t noticed at the time was the lack of a reference to the process of democratizing the Arab world. It was a speech that remained within a civilisationalist framework; that is to say, one that affirmed, “We in the West are reaching out to the Muslims.”

The speech on May 19, even if skepticism remains on the effects that it will produce, definitely breaks with an Orientalist background by bringing the issue of democracy to the forefront. Philosophically, it demonstrates a considerable evolution, affirming that democracy is not the exception in the Arab world, that the problem with relations between the Arab and the free world is not one of religion, but of freedom and democracy.

What had been marginalized in Cairo becomes fundamental: “The Arab world is not too dissimilar from our own and is heading towards a democracy like ours.” Whereas in Cairo it was a case of, “They are different, we are reaching out to them,” basically “a humanitarian Bush.”

Barack Obama’s latest speech has departed from a religious and cultural approach to one that is philosophically more political, and what’s more, one that compares the Arab peoples’ struggle for emancipation to that of Black Americans.

This speech, without taboo and in a head-on fashion, broaches the issue of democracy.

Then was there a problem of timing? Wouldn’t it have been more useful before the revolutions? Aren’t people waiting today for more concrete standpoints?

The Cairo speech was, in fact, extremely restricted by relations with authoritarian regimes. And this recent speech is indeed making amends a little belatedly. It would have been advantageous to have had this approach in Cairo. However, today the United States is sending out a very strong signal, “I am the guarantor of democracy in the Arab world, making sure that the dictators pay attention to what they are doing to their people because I am here to accompany them in their process of democratization.”

And this also reflects the American desire to remain present in the Arab world in spite of the discredit they face over Iraq and their excessive prudence on both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Arab Spring. This is new territory and allows the United States to place itself at the helm, contesting with France or Great Britain.

How will the people react to this speech?

We can say that the Tunisian and Egyptian governments are more or less happy. From the people’s point of view, there is suspicion. Obama raised a definite hope in the Arab world upon his inauguration, and there has been extreme disappointment, especially over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The ingenuity in his latest speech is to be found in the linking of democratization and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the clarification that there can only be democracy in the Arab world if there are advances on this issue, emphasizing that democracy will benefit Palestinians too.

This speech can surely be welcomed, but the disappointment caused during Obama’s first few years of presidency concerning the Israeli-Palestinian has produced an air of caution, anticipation and indeed suspicion.

Does the fact that the United States did not intervene alongside Saudi Arabia in Bahrain reinforce this suspicion?

People are effectively not only still smoldering over the unresolved issues of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also over the slightly schizophrenic policy which dictates that the people must liberate themselves, yet allows the Gulf Cooperation Council to reprimand the people of Bahrain.

That said, for the first time, Obama has broken the silence on the Gulf’s protected zone by saying that democracy isn’t just for Egyptians and Tunisians, but also for those states who are their natural allies. Of course this is prudent, yet the issue is broached all the same, albeit subtly. It is a small evolution that naturally leaves the people skeptical.

Barack Obama’s speech finally goes beyond the horizon of authoritarianism, yet it remains simultaneously cautious, demonstrating a philosophical break, although the people on the Israeli-Palestinian front expect it to fail, as do those from the Gulf. It has come, in fact, a little late and leaves itself open to criticism because of the geometrically variable policy of the United States in the Arab world.

But, at last, the Americans have made democracy the central issue in the Arab world, and in doing so, in this break with the past, this speech is historic.