In Mideast, Obama faces tough crowd: Here's what they want to hear

The president stopped in Saudi Arabia, where 79 percent of residents view him favorably, on Wednesday. But in Cairo tomorrow, he'll address a skeptical audience of 1.4 billion Muslims.

By Caryle Murphy and Liam Stack | Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 3, 2009 edition

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Cairo - Ahmad al-Shugairi, host of a popular Saudi television show about Islam, gets excited just imagining the idea: If he had the chance, what would he advise US President Obama to say in his address to the Muslim world on Thursday?

"I've dreamed of being his adviser," enthuses Mr. Shugairi, as he begins listing ideas that "would hit home" with him.

Mr. Obama should "admit the United States has made mistakes"; emphasize that Americans have "a belief in God that is written on the US dollar"; and stress that Americans "respect all religious prophets, including [the prophet] Muhammad," says Shugairi, a resident of Jeddah. Obama stopped in Riyadh on Wednesday to meet the Saudi king. [Editor's note: The original version misstated Mr. Shugairi's city of residence.]

When the US leader steps to the podium in Cairo June 4, his target audience will be the world's estimated 1.4 billion Muslims. They'll be listening with curiosity to the first American president with a Muslim father.

His toughest crowd, however, will be in the Middle East, where US foreign policies are most disliked. Obama's rhetoric has generated high expectations. But his reception here will be heavily salted with skepticism. Arabs wonder whether US policies will really change on core issues of concern to the region: US withdrawal from Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and political reform of authoritarian governments.

"Actions please, not words. I am tired of rhetoric," says Nagwan Al Guneid, an employee of the French oil company Total in Sanaa, Yemen. "This ever-promised change of Obama's should be solid and clear in his foreign policy."

According to a recently released Arab public opinion poll by Middle East expert Shibley Telhami, of the University of Maryland, and polling firm Zogby International, 77 percent of Arabs have an unfavorable attitude toward the US, which they rank second after Israel as the world's biggest threat.

Overall, only 45 percent had a favorable view of Obama. Still, an average of 51 percent in the six Arab countries polled expressed hopefulness about US Middle East policy.

"This is not a love affair," said Dr. Telhami during a discussion of the findings at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "This is, 'We're interested. We think we like this guy. We're prepared to listen.'"

A separate poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland showed particular skepticism among Egyptians, 81 percent of whom thought Obama's goals "probably" or "definitely" included imposing American culture on Muslim society. Seventy percent said he aimed to weaken and divide the Islamic world.

An audiotape released Tuesday and attributed to Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri, castigated Egyptian officials for turning their country into an "international station of torture in America's war on Islam."

Why Obama chose Egypt

Egypt was a logical choice for the speech, most observers say. With 80 million people, it is the most populous Arab state and an important player in Islamic and Arab affairs, though its influence has waned in recent years due to internal economic and political problems.

"This is a very important and historical moment for the United States to build a serious and organic bridge between Arab and Islamic culture and American culture," says Nabil Abdel Fattah, assistant director of the Cairo-based Ahram Center, a think tank with ties to the government.

"We are one of the two or three oldest peoples and nations in the world," he says. "Obama was correct to choose Egypt as the location to address the entire Islamic world."

The president has seeded the ground for his Cairo speech with conciliatory remarks toward Muslims, first in his Inauguration Day address when he urged relations built on "mutual interest and mutual respect" and then in a January interview with the Saudi-owned television channel Al Arabiya. Speaking in the Turkish parliament in early April, Obama stressed that the US "is not and never will be at war with Islam."

En route to Cairo, Obama visited King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In private talks, the two leaders were expected to discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions and how best to cooperate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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