Behind Obama’s Beautiful Rhetoric

Barack Obama was at his finest in Cairo, and that’s mighty fine.

He summoned all his talents not just as a speechwriter but also as a speechthinker to bravely put on the table just about all the mess that needs to be dealt with.

In his refreshing manner of treating everybody like intelligent adults, he basically told the world to discard foolish and dangerous ideas.

To the 9/11 conspiracists here in the U.S. and in the Muslim world, he said, “Let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. . . . These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.”

Similarly, he said, denying the Holocaust “is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful.”

On the vexing issue of Israel and Palestine, Obama equally discussed the grievances on both sides. He acknowledged “the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” he rejected additional Israeli settlements, and he called on Palestinians to “abandon violence.”

He pointed out that “privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time,” he said, “for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.”

In a crazy world, this was a plea for rationality and for “mutual respect.”

Obama used the “respect” word several times, intentionally signaling that the United States does not look down upon the Muslim world. And he quoted the Koran several times to show his appreciation.

As he did in his famous speech on racism in Philadelphia during the campaign, Obama insisted that “the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.”

Unlike any president before him, Obama is comfortable owning up to the errors of our Western ways.

He noted that “colonialism” denied many Muslims their rights and opportunities.

He noted that in the Cold War, “Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”

He also acknowledged that during the Cold War, “the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.”

And, in an obvious indictment of Bush and Cheney, he said 9/11 “led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals.”

This is the Obama I admire.

But then he couldn’t help glossing over the realities of current U.S. policy.

“Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail,” he said. Well, the existing world order has the U.S. at the top of the heap, so either he was willfully ignoring that fact or he was making a dire prediction.

On the issue of nuclear weapons, he reiterated his laudable desire for the world to get rid of them. But he added: “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons.” Yet that’s exactly what the United States has been doing vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea.

On democracy, he said, “No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation on another.” But that’s what the United States has done, and is doing, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Acting bashful, he added, “America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.”

But that’s precisely what the United States, under Bush and Obama, has been doing in regards to Hamas’s victory at the ballot box in Gaza.

With his rhetoric, Obama painted a better picture of America than exists in the here and now.

He’ll have to do a whole lot more, in his actions, to bring the United States close to that picture.