by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n The problem with Obama’s\u00a0Al Arabiya<\/em>\u00a0interview (which I wrote about at length elsewhere):<\/p>\n 1) It is never wise to contrast negatively American efforts in the region (“dictating”) with those of a Saudi monarch (“courageous”) \u2014 one could in theory draw the conclusion that the unelected head of a theocratic autocracy was portrayed more favorably than the U.S. State Department (“the United States”).<\/p>\n <\/em>2) There is no reason to be apologetic about past U.S. policy or to question recent generic bipartisan initiatives. Worse still, Obama offers little mention that the U.S. in fact has a far better record toward Muslims than does a Europe, China, Russia, etc. (cf. freeing Kuwait, giving help to the Somalis, bombing European Christians to save Balkan Muslims, billions in aid to the Jordanians, Egyptians, and Palestinians, fostering democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, tsunami relief, liberal immigration policy, lectures to Russia about its horrific treatment of Chechnya, helping to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, etc). The problem with the Muslim Middle East transcends what we do, and its pathologies \u2014 statism, autocracy, religious intolerance, gender apartheid, tribalism, lack of human rights, and constitutional government \u2014 are mostly self-inflicted, rather than the result of American insensitivity. If there is no need for a president to mention all of these obvious and embarrasing problems, then in the same manner there is no need to apologize for U.S. policy.<\/p>\n <\/em>3) We are now confused about the rules of evocation of Obama’s multicultural identities: during the campaign many learned it was quite illiberal to mention his middle name, his Muslim father, his exotic Indonesian connection, etc. To do so was to suggest that he was perhaps somehow less genuine or properly traditional than the typical square American (although those rules were adjudicated by Obama himself who often drew on “difference” when politically advantageous). But now he seems to be telling the Arab world that they can relate to him, by virtue of his unique identity, in ways they have not with a more stereotyped American president. (Do we wish to go there\u2014as if an Asian president might better connect with Japan or a Swedish-American with Sweden?)<\/p>\n 4) We understand this logic that our president can, in Zen-fashion, confound the radical Islamists in a way a drawling Texan cannot. But this is a morass I don’t think a commander-in-chief wishes to venture into, since for too many, in the way the interview went, it almost implies something like: “Trust me and just watch \u2014 by distancing myself from your past policy, your past Presidents, and indeed in some sense from many of you too, I can better represent you abroad.”<\/p>\n <\/em>This may be clever (but not as clever as many in the Middle East who are savvy to it), but it is unwise and dangerous for a President to try such a gambit.<\/p>\n 5) I’ll skip the utopian talk about Iran and the Middle East since nothing new was advanced among the rhetorical flourishes, and such a technique of saintly rhetoric and earthly stasis is now well-known.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner The problem with Obama’s\u00a0Al Arabiya\u00a0interview (which I wrote about at length elsewhere):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[724],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Mb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2690,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-muslim-world-address\/","url_meta":{"origin":2987,"position":0},"title":"The Muslim World Address","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner President Obama has a much-publicized upcoming talk in Cairo that is rather pretentiously packaged as an address to the \u201cMuslim world.\u201d It is likely that, unlike the Bush speeches about the shared innate desire for freedom, and hope that the Arab autocracies would liberalize,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-tries-to-eradicate-radical-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":2987,"position":1},"title":"Obama Tries to Eradicate Radical Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media The Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all words that allude to Islam from important national security documents. Put differently, the Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all knowledge and context necessary to confront and defeat radical Islam (news\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7096,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-past-and-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":2987,"position":2},"title":"The Past and the Future","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Last November Raymond Ibrahim was interviewed by Egyptian reporter Sherif Awad.\u00a0 The interview appeared in several Egyptian magazines and websites, as well as American ones, such as the\u00a0Westchester Guardian. \u00a0The interview follows: Awad: Can you tell us about your family and their profession and how and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6081,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-administration-calls-for-the-human-rights-of-jihadi-murderers\/","url_meta":{"origin":2987,"position":3},"title":"Obama Administration Calls for the ‘Human Rights’ of Jihadi Murderers","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Nigerian government is criticized by the U.S. for going after mass murdering terrorists. by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media It\u2019s well known that whenever jihadis attack and slaughter innocent people \u2014 especially Christians \u2014 the Obama administration tries to ignore or whitewash. Lesser known, however, is that whenever foreign governments try\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nigeria"","block_context":{"text":"Nigeria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/nigeria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2581,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-puzzling-approach-to-the-muslim-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":2987,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Puzzling Approach to the Muslim World","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media President Barack Obama and I have one thing in common shared by few Americans: we were brought up by at least one parent \u2014 biological or step is irrelevant \u2014 who was born and raised in an Islamic milieu. Intimately aware of the inevitable effects\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8154,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/untrue-truisms-in-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":2987,"position":5},"title":"Untrue Truisms in the War on Terror","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media In the current tensions with the Islamic World, pundits bandy about received wisdom that in fact is often ignorance. Here are a few examples. 1)\u00a0 The solution of radical Islam must come from within Islam. Perhaps it could. It would be nice to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"mia_farrow_charlie_hebdo_1-13-15-1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mia_farrow_charlie_hebdo_1-13-15-1-406x500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2987"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2989,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions\/2989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}