Obama's Cairo speech a "home run"

Obama Hits A Home Run
by Robert Dreyfuss on 06/04/2009
The Nation

I watched President Obama's Cairo speech from Dubai, the sprawling and frenzied city of gold and shopping malls on the shores of the Arabian--er, Persian--Gulf. (I'm on my way to Tehran tomorrow, to report on the July 12 presidential elections there, and I'd better keep my "Arabian" and "Persian" Gulfs straight.)

Based on early returns from a decidedly unrepresentative sample of Arab public opinion, Obama hit a home run. I agree. (Incidentally, it's not easy to find Arabs in Dubai, a desert kleptocracy run by a super-rich ruling clan, whose population is overwhelmingly from South Asia, East Asia, southern Sudan, and other parts of Africa.) In Dubai, at least, and in its media, Obama's speech was topic one, two and three all week.

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