I have posted an annotated version of the speech President Obama gave in Cairo today over at Outside the Beltway. I am a glutton for punishment.
I have posted an annotated version of the speech President Obama gave in Cairo today over at Outside the Beltway. I am a glutton for punishment.
I’m less concerned than you are about seeming equivalencies drawn.
The direct audience — the Arab world — believes X and we believe Y. Obama’s aim is to bring them from X to Y. If conceding a watered-down version of X gives the audience intellectual cover to slide a bit in our direction I think that’s a good trade-off.
We’ve had quite a bit of stating our position clearly and in uncompromising terms. It hasn’t gotten us where we want to go. This is in part a seduction, and sometimes in a seduction you flatter and gloss.
Obama was quite clear in challenging the audience on the holocaust, on Israel’s right to exist, on the truth of 9/11, on women’s right to an equal education. It is a challenge to Arab fantasies. It’s an insistence on a reality-based dialog. But it’s wrapped in flattery.
The point is not to chisel great truths into stone or to make ourselves look good or to make ourselves feel good. The goal here is to change the game. Obama is trying to win, to get the Arabs into bed so to speak. So we tell them we love their perfume and their hair and think they look great in those jeans, so what?
During WW2 we said all sorts of nice things about Stalin. We needed him, could not accomplish our goals without him. So we flattered and glossed. Should we have attacked Stalin as a monster? Or is there perhaps a place for a bit of pragmatic puffery in pursuit of our objectives?