The Best and the Worst Obama

In his speech to the State Department, we have again seen the best and the worst versions of Obama. As the best, he is a great orator, excellent analyst, and undisputed democrat. His interpretation of the causes and objectives of the Arab democratic revolutions and of the role of youth skilled in modern technology thirsting for liberty and dignity has been impeccable. His support of the democratization of the Arab world has been as clear as mountain water. Obama has rightly said of bin Laden that he was already politically defeated by the Middle Eastern democratic revolution before being ambushed by elite North American soldiers.

His worst is evidenced by his actions, which are limited by the traditional interests and obligations of the United States. Although his vision of peace between Israel and Palestine is the correct one, two states with the 1967 borders, it has also been the latest of Obama’s headaches. The United States will not support the possible proclamation of the Palestinian State next September in the U.N. General Assembly. The Palestinians need to continue in good faith that some Israeli governing officials that Obama had not even explicitly asked that they forever stop the colonization of the territories they have occupied since 1967.

Obama has been very forceful in his support of the democratization processes in Tunisia and Egypt. For those countries, Obama has offered an interesting packet of economic assistance. He has also marked five solid regimes concentrated in North Africa and the Middle East as the villains of the moment. This order of evil includes Libya (there is no solution until Qaddafi is removed), Syria (severe warning to Bachar al Asad), Iran, Yemen and Bahrain. With any of these, those that choose democratic reforms, he has said, will have the full support of the United States. This support has two concrete preferences; defense of religious freedom in the zone — Christians should be able to pray without problems in Cairo the same way that Shiites do in Bahrain — and fighting for equal rights for women.

Some believed that Obama was going to avoid the Israel-Palestine conflict in this speech, but he didn’t. His words have been just, similar to those used two years ago in Cairo about “the suffering and humiliation” of the Palestinians who live “under occupation and without the power to enjoy their own nation.” This has been his exact description of the formula that will resolve the conflict: Two states, “a viable Palestine and a safe Israel,”* within the 1967 borders, negotiating two problems with difficult solutions, the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. And honestly, it has been the realization that, two years later, his administration has not advanced an inch on this matter and that Israeli settlement has continued.

Although they have fully rejected the Palestinians’s initiative to be recognized by the United Nations in September, the Israelis have only said that the status quo is impossible to maintain.

In any case, the positive is that the vision Obama has for the Arab and Muslim world is based on his profound conviction of the truth of this quote from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America that he has evoked at the end of his intervention: “All men are created equal.”

*Editor’s note: None of the quotations could be independently verified.