Race/Ethnicity

Among the most hotly debated issues arising from President Obama's speech in Cairo was whether or not he was implying a moral equivalency between the plight of the Palestinians and that faced by the Jews during the Holocaust. He and his team have denied this, but the juxtaposition of ideas in speeches does not occur entirely by accident. Neither does the juxtaposition of stops during presidential trips.

That President Obama went from Cairo to Germany and from a day where the central message was associated with his outreach to the Muslim world to one in which his central message was a commemoration of the Holocaust was purposeful. Frankly, to me it was slightly grotesque. "Ok Jews, if Cairo gave you heartburn here's a little Holocaust for you. Feeling better now?" 

Further, the message delivered by the president at Buchenwald, was as carefully calculated as all his messages are to resonate different ways with different audiences. Again, the juxtaposition of Buchenwald with Cairo colors how we hear words like:

This place teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our times. ... We have to guard against cruelty in ourselves. ...And it is now up to us, the living, in our work, wherever we are, to resist injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take and ensure that those who were lost here did not go in vain."

Palestinians will undoubtedly greet those remarks as affirmations of their cause even as Israelis may greet them as a recognition of the lessons of the Holocaust. It is a deft politician who can use such a blend of language, setting and day-to-day context to deliver potent and seemingly supportive message to two deeply divided groups at the same time. 

Whose evil is he referring to? Whose cruelty? He dances with issues of equivalency but never gets so close as to actually embrace them.

This helps him with his outreach to the Muslim world because he seems to be saying the Israelis are hypocrites and while they have used the Holocaust for years to justify the existence of their state and the often tough tactics they have used in defense of it, perhaps we can now join together in using it against them. And for the Jews he says, I feel your pain. 

Indeed, on this trip, for all the talk of Muslims he has sought to take a page out of the playbook of a popular Christian icon, Santa Claus, offering something for everyone. For Muslims the speech, for Jews Buchenwald, for Palestinians tough talk about Israeli settlements, for Israelis talk of an unbreakable bond with the U.S., for anti-Iranians criticism of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, for Iranians acknowledgement of their "right" to a civilian nuclear program, for the American right attacks against "violent extremists," for the left no use of George Bush's favorite word "terrorism." And so on.

Thus, while the equivalency debate may continue to boil for some time without resolution (because everyone can hear what they want to or what they fear to in his recent statements), it underscores that the message of this trip seems to be that there is no position so divided that the U.S. cannot be on both sides of it, no group pair of enemies so embittered that we cannot offer support to both sides. While I am willing to accept the Administration's assertion that there was no implied equivalency between the actions of the Israelis against the Palestinians and those of the Nazis against the Jews, I am more troubled by the fact that the President or his team somehow think that leadership and diplomacy require that we view all issues as somehow equivalent...that there is no idea that cannot be bartered for another, balanced by a countervailing thought.

Obama on this trip has become President of Newton's Third Law of Motion. For every action, for every word, there is an equal and opposite reaction...and the United States will embrace both. 

While some may hope to see this as the impartiality of the peacemaker, others might reasonably fear that it is the moral vacuity of a politician who seeks to be all things to all people. As my friend Tom Friedman often says, "just because George Bush or Dick Cheney says something doesn't always mean it is not true."  There are absolutes. There are countries with whom we have greater shared interests than others. There are crimes that are worse than other wrongs. To restore American leadership does not mean having everyone like us. We can take stands that are more difficult and controversial than the President's statements today opposing Holocaust denial and genocide. (Though it might be worth exploring whether we are opposed only to genocide during or after the fact or whether we are willing to actually try to stop those who threaten it...as do the Iranians and the leaders of the militant wing of Hamas in their views toward the destruction of Israel. And by the way, by stopping them I don't mean reprimanding them.)

The answer as to whether Obama ultimately lives up to our hopes or our fears come when his actions illustrate whether there are values we are not willing to negotiate, points that can't be balanced, enemies we are willing to oppose, friends we are willing to stand by even when it is unpopular. Tell me the day that Obama is willing to make his first enemy in order to defend a deeply held principle and I will tell you the day he ascends from being a politician to being a statesman.

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President Obama's speech today, welcome as it was in tenor and intent, sought to test whether American identity politics could effectively translate into a new form of U.S. identity diplomacy. While there has always been some element of playing to cultural and historical affinities in international relations, it is telling and rather worrisome that a speech offered as a centerpiece of the new president's Middle East policy spoke to a type of relationship that has seldom if ever been similarly invoked in U.S. diplomatic history-that between our country and a religion. 

Seventy-eight times in his 55-minute speech did President Obama use the words Islam or Muslim, their variants or make mention of Islamic texts, language or institutions. The central thesis of the speech was that the United States needs to redefine its relationship with the Muslim world. And while it is hard to be against strengthening our relations with any group, this approach does contain a trap. It posits the existence of something that does not really exist. With over a billion members, "the Muslim world" encompasses a group so geographically, culturally, ideologically, and ethnically diverse as to be almost a meaningless term. 

Further, as some critics have rightly pointed out, despite the occasional acknowledgement that Muslims may exist in Asia, Africa or the United States, the speech was primarily addressed to the Muslims of the greater Middle East. Not only does this unintentionally marginalize Muslims who are not Arab or Persian, upon further examination the focus on that region reminds us that our problems are not with Muslims per se but with often deeply divided subsets of that group with other sect-related, national, tribal or other identities. This in turn underscores why repairing relations with Islam is not a highly meaningful goal from a practical standpoint (because Islam is hardly monolithic and our relationship with it is hardly central to solving the problems we face).  

While the purpose of the speech seemed to be to try to engender better will toward the United States and our new administration...and while it may have succeeded in this respect...from a diplomatic perspective one can only get so far by appealing to an entity that doesn't really exist. Ultimately the representatives of the U.S. government have to sit down with representatives of local governments and most of the governments in the region are not known for their responsiveness to the needs or moods of their people. Even among those that are democratic such as Iraq, Pakistan and Iran, divisions among Islamic sects or between fundamentalist and moderate factions are likely to trump generalized views that this U.S. administration is less offensive to Muslims than the last one. 

In the United States, identity politics work because churches or synagogues mobilize voters. In the Islamic world the effect is likely to be much less easily translated into political movement. This is not to say that today's speech does damage to the United States. That could only happen if the administration were to expect too much of it in the way of meaningful consequences.

In the end, I guess I am of the school that believes in the strictest and most far reaching interpretation of the separation between church and state. There's no place for the cozy relationship that has emerged between the two in U.S. politics or in the politics of the Middle East. And there is no place for it in U.S. diplomacy. In the first instance, it is a matter of principle that should divide the two. In the second, it is a matter of practicality and a sense of history. To my mind, America should have no relationship with Islam to repair...or with any other religion. Our government should be blind to such issues and treat all countries with tolerance and respect. Which is just one more reason why today's speech, for all the merits clearly underlying its conception and evident in its execution, made me uneasy.

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While the attention of the world is on the G20 in London, Washington still percolates with discussions on related and other issues. Here are a few snippets picked up in casual encounters in the past day or so:

• Bankers woo the Congressional Black Caucus: A former senior government official who sat in on the Congressional Black Caucus meeting about the toxic asset bailout plan came away perplexed. During the meeting, representatives of several big financial companies, including Pimco, told the C.B.C. they'd helped the Treasury design the plan to have the government buy up the "bad" assets. They also said they were expecting to be awarded the right to participate in the plan. While Caucus members were, not surprisingly, concerned that minority firms might not be well-represented in the program, they also had concerns that were more fundamental. The person with whom I spoke was, for example, was particularly taken aback by the fact that these financial firms apparently felt it was perfectly appropriate to have a process in which the same companies that help the government design the program should also be the ones who were awarded participation in the program...and especially if the same firms would be the ultimate beneficiaries. I hope Treasury thinks the appearances on this through a little more carefully or I'm afraid there is likely to be more blowback of the kind no one needs right now.

• Dem FP heavyweights get no satisfaction from the White House: An extremely well-known top Democrat, once a candidate for national office, complained that he has been trying for months to get in to see top national security people at the White House -- without any luck. "They are living in a bubble," he ruefully observed, commenting that even when he tried to get in to see a mid-level Treasury official with a concrete plan to help address a central economic concern, his requests fell on deaf ears. This individual, a household name, was one of no fewer than half a dozen people who have made similar complaints or observations to me in the past week.

• A crunch to come again in Oil: In a conversation with a highly respected senior executive at one of the world's leading energy companies, I asked about the price of oil over the next several years. He offered several responses. One was that when King of Saudi Arabia said $75 a barrel that meant something. Two, he felt that a number of important projects for difficult-to-process or difficult-to-extract oil become viable at $65 a barrel. And three, while this might suggest an average price of $70 or $75 going forward, he concurred that the global economic situation really complicated things. Investment in new production dried up due to the crisis and the consequence is a material decline in productive capacity. And that's why, he said, a few years down the road, when the recovery happens and demand rebounds particularly from emerging economies we will therefore very likely see oil price spikes.

• A shift underway on U.S. Israel policy?: Over dinner, one of the most important Democratic international policy leaders on the Hill said he felt that there was an appreciable shift seeming to emerge with regard to U.S. policy toward Israel. He felt that even engaged Jews who might have historically considered themselves pro-Israel were, in the wake of Gaza and a broader sea-change in attitudes in the U.S., beginning to expect a much tougher line from the U.S. government toward Israel if the Israelis do not move more constructively toward progress with the Palestinians and their neighbors. This individual was not, however, as convinced as other foreign policy experts around the table that Israel would not follow through on threats to strike at Iran. For more on the Iranian dimension and to help you draw your own conclusions, go to Jeffrey Goldberg's attention-grabbing recent interview with Bibi Netanyahu at The Atlantic.

• Franken, finally: Oh, and it increasingly looks like former Saturday Night Live star Al Franken is about to become the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. As one keen observer said to me yesterday, "Let's just hope he is a better politician than he was a comedian..." Amen.

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