I realize that most Americans care less about the Middle East right now….there are more important issues facing them….like their family’s survival, but Obama has made a speech to the Arab world and there will be a reaction.

Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent:

More and more, it looks like the same old melody that Bush’s lads used to sing. We’re not against the Muslim world. In fact, we are positively for it. We want you to have democracy, up to a point. We love Arab “moderates” and we want to reach out to you and be your friends. Sorry about Iraq. And sorry – again, up to a point – about Afghanistan and we do hope that you understand why we’ve got to have a little “surge” in Helmand among all those Muslim villages with their paper-thin walls. And yes, we’ve made mistakes.

He can, and will, surely, try his global-Arab line; that every Arab nation will be involved in the new Middle East peace, a resurrection of the remarkably sane Saudi offer of full Arab recognition of Israel in return for an Israeli return to the 1967 borders in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 242. Obama will be clearing this with King Abdullah on Wednesday, no doubt. And everyone will nod sagely and the newspapers of the Arab dictatorships will solemnly tip their hats to the guy and the New York Times will clap vigorously.

And the Israeli government will treat it all with the same amused contempt as Netanyahu treated Obama’s demand to stop building Jewish colonies on Arab land and, back home in Washington, Congress will fulminate and maybe Obama will realise, just like the Arab potentates have realised, that beautiful rhetoric and paradise-promises never, ever, win against reality.

I listened to the speech and came away with this…..It was a historic speech that only Obama could have made…it was a powerful speech that covered much of the US policies and situations in the ME….and it was a dramatic speech where Obama called on all Muslims to basically work together with the rest of the world to defeat extremism.

I will agree abit with Fisk that the speech will not immediately cause Muslims to run out and hug the rest of the world, but it will give a younger generation the hope and the idea that all things are possible.

An excellent speech….in my opinion…..