He then reiterated his demand for Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank, attempting to signal to the Muslim community that his administration would not hesitate to stand up to the Israelis in dealing with the issue.
The topic then shifted to Iran. Obama’s speech in Cairo was strategically preceded by a visit to Saudi Arabia as a demonstration of U.S. solidarity with the Arab world against Iranian expansionism. Obama’s earlier address to the Iranian people on Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, was his first step toward extending a diplomatic hand to the regime. In the Cairo speech, Obama took it a step further by openly addressing the 1953 CIA-backed coup against the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. The coup is a deep grievance shared by the Iranian regime and the masses and is an issue that most U.S. presidents have swept under the carpet. Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has said on several occasions that the Iranians will only respond to the U.S. call for a change in diplomatic relations when Washington confesses and apologizes for mistakes made in the past. Obama’s bluntness in addressing the issue, while expectedly short of an outright apology to the Iranian regime, will certainly be noted in Tehran. At the same time, Obama ran down the list of U.S. grievances against Iran and the terrorist acts that the regime has sponsored in the past.
Concerning the nuclear issue, Obama spoke against nuclear weapons proliferation, but repeated his stance that any nation, including Iran, had a right to civilian nuclear power in compliance with international regulations, essentially calling out Iran’s dubious claim that its nuclear activities are solely intended for peaceful purposes.
Obama chose his words especially carefully when discussing democracy in the region. Going into this speech, the president already faced the challenge of appealing to the Muslim masses, most of whom deeply despise the authoritarian regimes the United States allies itself with in the region. The absence of one such ally — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak — from Obama’s speech might have helped Obama reach out to the masses. Mubarak’s official excuse for his absence was the mid-May death of his 12-year-old grandson — the same excuse used when Mubarak canceled his May 26 visit to the White House. Mubarak did meet with Obama prior to the speech, but it is unclear why he did not attend, especially when his son Gamal and representatives from the main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, were present. Still, his absence gave Obama a chance to distance himself from the Egyptian leader. And from Mubarak’s point of view, this could have been a way to separate official U.S.-Egyptian dealings from Obama’s outreach to the masses.
Obama softened criticism against his Egyptian hosts by acknowledging that “there is no straight line” to becoming a veritable democratic nation. He humbled the U.S.
