June 4, 2009 | Forbes.com
What Obama’s Mideast Trip Says About The U.S.
Americans woke up this week to news that President Obama is now describing the U.S. as–if you take into account the number of Muslim Americans–“one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”
Going strictly by the numbers, President Obama is wrong. America's Muslim population is variously estimated at somewhere in the range of about 3 million to a high-end guess of 6 million, which puts it way below not only all major Muslim states, but below Russia, China and–as my colleague Andrew McCarthy points out–Burkina Faso.
But Obama clearly wasn't much interested in the actual numbers. He was setting the stage for his speech in Cairo today, part of his attempt to retool America's image abroad and reach out to “the Muslim world.” This comment was one in a series of advance signals that America itself is in the club, one of the crowd, a country that warrants acceptance by the “Muslim world” on terms that world itself deems fit.
That's problematic on several levels, not least that unless you embrace Osama bin Laden's scheme for a global caliphate, there is no single crowd out there to belong to. The Muslim “world” is itself highly diverse, from democratic Indonesia to despotic Iran, and from moderate Turks to the fanatical Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. Nor is the history among Muslims themselves entirely one of brotherly love. From terrorist attacks inside Islamic states themselves, to such extravaganzas as the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, there is a considerable and recent record of Muslims killing Muslims.
It is this hazy global fraternity from which Obama now seeks approval, and to which he keeps offering apologies and respect on behalf of the United States.
To me, the most troubling question by now is not how Muslims, in whatever array of world-spanning variety, regard America. Nor is it whether the world in general–whether Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Taoist or Animist–might approve of the United States.
The looming question, as this administration rolls ahead with “change,” is: What is America itself? What is this country for which Obama seeks approval? What is it becoming, in that process?
It's a question not only of interest to Americans. It is also of great importance in shaping the way the rest of the world views and treats America. When an Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or a Kim Jong Il, or a Vladimir Putin (or pick-your-despot-du-jour) sizes up the U.S., charm is not a big factor in the equation. President Kennedy had charm, and the Soviet Union answered it with the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis. President Clinton was believed by many (I wasn't one of them) to have charm, and it was on his watch that al-Qaida hatched the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. When America's enemies analyze the statements of a U.S. president, the biggest question is not whether it might be fun to wear an Obama T-shirt, but how much they can threaten, bully, extort or get away with.
So, what is America today?
In some realms, the answer gets murkier by the hour. America is a sovereign state–whose current president took his campaign last year to Berlin, where he declared himself a citizen of the world. America is a capitalist country–in which the government now owns General Motors. America is a country of pioneering spirit–in which any contemporary Paul Bunyans will soon be groveling before the edicts of the Environmental Protection Agency, and counting the carbon emissions of Babe the Ox.
America is a country in which impartial rule of law is supposed to trump religious and ethnic affiliations. But Obama has now presented the Senate with a Supreme Court nominee whose qualifications include “empathy,” and whose record includes a declared bias in favor of her own ethnic origins.
As for American foreign policy, it is taking on facets of some of those Obama campaign slogans–“hope,” “change”–which sounded catchy only until you tried asking what exactly they really meant. In diplomacy, there can be a useful role at times for ambiguities. But when ambiguity becomes pervasive, and great powers are involved, you have the makings of misunderstandings–like Neville Chamberlain's “peace for our time”–that can lead to major wars.
Thus do we have Obama–as he charts America's course abroad–bowing to the Saudi king, wishing happy new year by Web cast (in Farsi) to the ayatollahs of Iran, and promising to deal with the Middle East by “holding up a mirror” and creating “a better dialogue.”
It is a curious inversion, actually, that the president of America–a country with so much to be proud of–feels so strongly compelled to try to cater to the rest of the world, especially to its most despotic elements. If it is truth-telling that Obama is after, then on what basis can America offer respect to the repressive, terrorist-sponsoring, messianic rulers of Iran? Does Obama “respect” North Korea's bizarre tyrant Kim Jong Il? And if not, then where exactly is the line between the Pyongyang's faults and Tehran's attractions?
It becomes ever more difficult to discern exactly what Obama is talking about, as he keeps offering to the despots of the Middle East America's “respect.” But I worry that, like the dollar, American respect may be heading for an era of major devaluation.
Where are the leaders who feel it is important to charm America? China's President Hu Jintao, Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Iran's ayatollahs all preside over countries that are aggressive players in world politics these days–but on the hardball basis of realities, trade, weapons; not on the strength of charming and validating those they deal with.
Obama's administration is still in its early days. And America is built on a bedrock of sound ideas and decent national character, which may yet carry the day. But I keep thinking of the clear and admirable American identity summed up in Ronald Reagan's demand during the Cold War: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” The Obama version would more likely be: “Let's talk about this wall.” I wish I could say that as he wades into the Middle East, that fills me with hope. It does not.
Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.