Age of Change: American Foreign

¶ … Age of Change: American foreign policy towards the Middle East under Obama (discourse analysis)

Perhaps the clearest shift in American attitudes towards the Middle East, as manifested by the Obama Administration, is exemplified Obama's decision to address the Muslim world directly in a speech at Cairo University. Obama deliberately chose one of the most modernized and secular venues in the Muslim world. He sought to connect with an audience of young people with educated and potentially changeable minds. Egypt alone of all the major Middle Eastern powers of the Islamic world has a peace treaty with Israel.

Obama spoke directly to individual Muslims as a diverse community: "So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end." Radicals had poisoned relationships in the past with the West, stated Obama -- so he reached out to individual, moderate Muslims in his speech at a place that exemplified peace, intellectual growth, youth, and vitality.

Obama's speech acknowledged that the Muslim world was not a monolith, but just as complex and diverse as the Christian world. Obama quoted the Koran, and stated "America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition." And quite movingly, Obama spoke of his own Muslim background: "Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith."

The rhetoric of the Obama Administration has not only been more conciliatory than the Bush Administration, but also showed greater insight into the diversity and intellectual depth of the Muslim world. It has stressed the similarities many Muslims share with Christian and Jewish-Americans like the Christian American president. Yet the policy of the Obama Administration has been more mixed. The Administration has quietly tried to shut down the embarrassing Guantanamo prison, where many Muslims were detained for so long, illegally, without formal charges and is attempting to repatriate its inmates to other nations. Yet the Obama Administration has also vigorously pursed the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

The discovery of an offensive Iranian nuclear program combined with the suppression of dissenting voices after a corrupt election made adopting a conciliatory and more open position to Iran difficult, despite Obama's stated willingness to open talks with that nation. "I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was" (Solomon & Spiegel 2009). Even his tenuous statement that America supports all impulses towards freedom was controversial -- Iranian hard-liners used it as evidence of American interference in their internal affairs, while the president's right-wing critics at home said that it was not sufficiently strident. "Any push by Mr. Obama to overtly support Iranian opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi could make diplomatic talks more difficult, while potentially painting Mr. Mousavi and his supporters as American puppets" (Solomon & Spiegel 2009).