Hope And Change In The Muslim World

January 28, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Islam and the West 

Means President Obama continuing Bush’s policies, and allowing CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petreaus the chance to develop an innovative counter insurgency strategy that can have a potential ripple effect throughout the region. Abe Greenwald:

Yet, hopefully that revolutionary impact will not be lost on those who felt it most. If security and political progress advances or merely holds in Iraq, and if President Obama allows David Petraeus to institute an innovative counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the work of the Bush administrations will bear fruit for a long time to come. What exist as troubling blurs in the memories of Americans eager for “change,” live as the formative nuclei for Muslim democrats who were willing do die for change.

And here’s the difference made by the quotation marks: Within the confines of one spoken paragraph of his Al-Arabiya interview, Barack Obama asserted that “All too often the United States starts by dictating,” and then immediately praised the dictatorial King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for his “great courage.” If future American presidents find themselves short of apology material in addressing Muslims, they should look no further than President Obama’s cynical wordplay-as-policy.

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