CHICAGO — President Barack Obama's speech to Turkey's parliament on Monday was another milestone in what appears to be his continuing attempt to steer the American ship of foreign policy in new directions. He made some important new statements and changes in style, while repeating some silly bad habits and simplistic insults. If he intended to address the Islamic world and signal a more humble, realistic policy toward majority-Islamic countries, he gets high marks for intent and execution, and medium marks for substance.
He reminded us once again of three linked issues: The U.S. has serious problems with some Muslims and some quarters of the Islamic world, and it is trying to acknowledge and redress those problems with a refreshing combination of courage, humility and honesty. But deep structural flaws still exist in achieving this goal.
The most significant thing about Mr. Obama's speech was the disparity between how he addressed all the tough issues that matter to Turkey - European Union admission, Kurdish relations, Armenian history, Cyprus, democratic consolidation, and the South Caucasus states - while offering only soft rhetoric and hollow generalities when speaking about U.S. relations with the Islamic world. Specificity reflects seriousness, generalities hesitation.
Mr. Obama should be commended for tackling these issues but chided for resorting to simplistic nothingness in four areas. The first is his meaningless statement that the U.S. "is not, and will never be, at war with Islam." He might be surprised to learn that Islam is not at war with America or Americans. He would be much better advised to stick to the facts - that a very small number of criminal Muslims attacked the U.S., and that his country is justifiably fighting them. By addressing "Islam" as a protagonist, he recklessly transforms specific quarrels into civilizational, religious and cultural battles.
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His second mistake is to speak glowingly of respect for the Islamic faith and all that it has contributed to the world, while always counterframing his words in the context of terrorism and warfare. He should speak, instead, of the rights that individuals and countries expect to enjoy in a world governed by law and mutual commitments to sovereign rights. Muslims don't need a U.S. president to tell them they have a fine cultural heritage; they want to hear that he respects a rule of law applied equally and consistently to all countries, regardless of religion.
His third mistake is that he frames the tensions between some Muslims and some Americans in terms of religious differences, rather than acknowledging that most criticisms of the U.S. in the Arab-Asian heartland of Islam reflect anger with U.S. foreign policy. The problem is not faith, it's foreign policy - specifically, U.S. policies that support Israel or autocrats throughout the Arab-Asian region. By evading these core problems, he ends up flailing for substitute issues to address.
His fourth mistake is to single out Iran as a potential menace for allegedly wanting to develop nuclear weapons, and chiding Iranian leaders as a teacher would children. This totally negates his remarks about wanting to deal with Iran on the basis of "mutual interests and mutual respect."
These criticisms of Mr. Obama's shortcomings should not detract from his commendable change in tone and direction from the horrors of the George Bush years. One intriguing new twist in his remarks was the insistence that Israelis and Palestinians must both honour commitments, change their ways, and make new moves to achieve the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security.
This is not a major new policy - but it does seem like another small shift toward repositioning the U.S. as a credible mediator seeking to work simultaneously for the rights and best interests of both Israelis and Palestinians. Rarely has a U.S. president spoken so clearly about both Israelis and Palestinians needing to change their ways to achieve peace.
We have here only vague hints couched in nice rhetoric, but they are intriguing hints that should be watched for signs of policies that affirm them. Large ships adjust their course slowly and incrementally. Mr. Obama turned the wheel a few degrees in Turkey this week.
Rami Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
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