Obama will praise the Middle East for resisting radicalism in a coming speech.
Islamists parade with a picture of Osama bin Laden during a protest in Cairo, May 6, 2011. (REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih)
The Wall Street Journal interviewed Amr Moussa, the leading candidate in Egypt’s presidential race, recently. Moussa highlighted the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s coming elections, via Power Line,
“It is inevitable, he said, that parliamentary elections in September will usher in a legislature led by a bloc of Islamists, with the Brotherhood at the forefront.”
Despite the fact that the Islamists are widely expected to win a majority in the Egyptian elections, Barack Obama is preparing a speech praising the Arab Spring. Obama intends to make the point that shooting Bin Laden in the eye and the uprisings and overthrow of several pro-American regimes will usher in a new era of political change in the Middle East.
Seems a bit foolish, doesn’t it?
The Wall Street Journal reported:
President Barack Obama is preparing a fresh outreach to the Muslim world in coming days, senior U.S. officials say, one that will ask those in the Middle East and beyond to reject Islamic militancy in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death and embrace a new era of relations with the U.S.
Mr. Obama is preparing to deliver that message in a wide-ranging speech, perhaps as early as next week, these officials say. The president intends to argue that bin Laden’s death, paired with popular uprisings sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, signal that the time has come to an end when al Qaeda could claim to speak for Muslim aspirations.
“It’s an interesting coincidence of timing—that he is killed at the same time that you have a model emerging in the region of change that is completely the opposite of bin Laden’s model,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser at the White House, said in an interview.
Since January, popular uprisings have overthrown the longtime dictators of Tunisia and Egypt. They have shaken rulers in Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Jordan, marking the greatest wave of political change the world has seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But the push for democracy appears to have stalled in some countries. The street protests against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have morphed into a civil war, with North Atlantic Treaty Organization backing the rebels. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Bahrain’s ruling Khalifa family have both met demonstrations with violence.
We’ll have to look back on this speech in the coming months as the Islamists take control of Egypt in the parliament elections.
Good luck, Israel.
