Please take a look at this report from Reuters:

“If it were in a position to do so, Al-Qaeda would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired on June 21. Pakistan has been battling Al-Qaeda’s Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 kilometers northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands. ‘God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahedin would take them and use them against the Americans,’ Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of Al-Qaeda’s in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television.”

After reading this a couple thoughts came to mind.  1. The US and the international community cannot fall into any type of lull in our efforts to prevent non state actors from acquiring nuclear weapons.  This is obviously especially pertinent in the state of Pakistan, where the Pakistani military seems to be making some progress against Taliban strongholds in the Swat and Northwest Frontier provinces.  The Obama administration has shown they take this threat seriously, exemplified by their recent efforts to enhance the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.  The administration should also actively promote the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).  A flexible, internationally accepted organization to curtail WMD proliferation started by the Bush administration.

Secondly, why is Al-Jazeera television giving this Al Qaeda criminal air time?  Al-Yazid’s words should be heard by intelligence analysts, government officials, and no one else.  What good can come out of this publicity?  Let Al Qaeda’s words fall on deaf ears by giving them a smaller and smaller soap box or at least one without a microphone near it.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bush, nuclear terrorism, Obama, PSI, terrorism

The events in Iran are number one story in the United States; above health care, budget deficits, Arod, and even the Jonas Brothers. Many Americans from all political and social backgrounds are calling for something to be done to help the Iranian protestors, with many watching and critiquing President Obama’s statements and actions. Why? Don’t Americans have enough to worry about here at home with a struggling economy, major energy and health policies on the horizon, a North Korea talking about launching a missile toward Hawaii?

In this country it’s just assumed that we care about other people’s rights and freedoms, because, well, we generally do. I believe a portion of these kinds of sentiment come from the fact that many Americans have to time to spend on such faraway and seemingly distant problems and issues because our wealth affords them this. I loved to point out to my students that many other people would love to gather at conferences to discuss ways to solve the world’s problems (civil war, poverty, hunger), but they don’t have the time because their actually stuck dealing with them! But the abundance of media and civic attention spent so far on the Iranian protests show a nation more deeply involved in the plight of other humans fighting what most Americans consider universal rights. Wilsonian America is standing up and putting pressure on our politicians to support the spread of democracy and human rights and by Obama’s comments today and resolutions passed by Congress, the pols are listening.

Changing threads: Is Iran going to have a full fledged revolution with a regime change? This is obviously an important question and one that puts political scientists to the test. There are many theories by major scholars such as Stephen Walt, Fred Halliday, David Armstrong, and Theda Skocpol, that attempt to predict/explain revolutions in the international relations field, but I have yet to see a brave soul put a prediction regarding the current events happening in Iran. These theories stress such casual factors in revolutions as economic class, weakness or strength of institutions, international norms, civil society, army, individual actors, just to name a few.

I, myself, am not smart or arrogant enough to attempt to predict the fall or sustainability of the Islamic Republic, but I am definitely leaning one way and for a very good reason. The key questions I think one should ask to find out the answer to this question is…Who controls the army and does the army view the current government as legitimate? For it is true that part of the reason the Islamic Republic came to power in the first place is because the Shah lost his previously strong hold on the military. By the military’s willingness so far to attempt to contain/stop the protests and by reading these reports, I have to believe that the Islamic Republic still maintains this vital area of support and this I would predict likely keep them in power for at least a while longer. The Revolutionary Guards seem ready and willing to stop any attack on the regime and I’m not sure if the rising tide of civil society is strong enough to combat this force, history tells us it usually is not. In the next few days/weeks, I suggest paying special attention to actions of Iran’s military.

One last thought on the causes of a possible revolution and protests.  We have heard many reasons why thousands of Iranian citizens all of a sudden rose up against the Islamic Republic Regime, but one that I have not really heard much about is the fact that their neighbor Iraq had true democratic elections just a few months before Iran’s Presidential election.  Only this story in the Christian Science Monitor connects the two country’s elections, and it mainly does so by comparing their respective Ayatollah clerical system.  I don’t think the Iraqi elections had a major impact on the Iranian protests, but I think that to discount its possible effects would be mistaken.  How could it not have an impact?  A country, with which you share thousands of years of history, religion, and land, goes through a dramatic change, including in the political process, and it is impossible to ignore.  Iranians saw a lot of destruction and instability happening to their neighbor, but they also saw nearby people vote and elect fellow citizens to represent them.  That has to mean something.

Tags: American idealism, Iran, Iran Protest, Obama, revolutions, Wilsonian, Woodrow Wilson

In the shadow of the Iranian election drama and the first real BRIC get together, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Don’t know what the SCO is?) held their annual Heads of State Summit in the Russian Ural city of Yekaterinburg. The Heads of State of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan came together to…well…make many placid statements and reaffirm the organization’s importance. Also in attendance were SCO Observer State leaders, including India’s Singh, Pakistan’s Zardari, Afghan’s Karzai, and Iran’s completely non-controversial leader, Ahmadinejad, who just made a quick appearance as he had to go back to Iran to check on his plants or something. Let’s go through some of the more interesting and consequential statements and actions from the Summit:

Pakistan’s Zardari and India’s Singh met on the side to discuss relations, but one should not assume that this is the beginning of a serious thaw in the belligerent states’ future. However, the SCO does prove useful in getting these two leaders together in a format that doesn’t focus on their disagreements.

Most of these next items can be found in the official Yekaterinburg Declaration:

The Declaration opens with this grand statement about the evolving global landscape and expresses the members’ preference for a world based not quite on US supremacy…

‘Serious changes are taking place in the modern international environment. Aspiration to peace and sustainable development, promotion of equal cooperation became the spirit of the times. The tendency towards true multipolarity is irreversible.’

After one is done grappling with the ‘spirit of the times’ reference, you can focus on the meat of the statement, which is that the world is affirmatively heading in a multipolar direction and that this is very much a good thing. As much as its members attempt to deflect accusations that the SCO is a bloc against the US/West/NATO, they keep coming up with these statements that completely say otherwise.

Though many are unaware, the SCO owns a basketball team.

By far the prominent issue discussed during the summit was the global financial crisis and the Declaration called for stronger financial regulation, the possible creation of a new financial regime to perform this, and called for greater economic cooperation between SCO members within the SCO framework. In regards to the last point, since the SCO’s creation in 1996 (current form in 2001) economic relations and trade between its members has indeed increased, but this has mostly been done on a bilateral basis, with China’s economic relations with the CA states being the most transformed. China’s trade with Russia is rather stagnant, mainly just military goods, and Russia’s recession has made life there let’s just say ‘unfriendly’ for many Uzbeks, Kazaks, etc. who migrate to the country up north to find better paying jobs. However, there was a significant move made by China that may actually have an impact on SCO member states personal economic problems, and that is the promise of $10 billion dollars in loans provided by Beijing for the Central Asian states. This move personifies Beijing’s dollar diplomacy to increase its footprint beyond its borders. The CA states are facing economic turmoil, that they very much desire to keep from becoming political/social upheaval, and China’s got the reserves to bail them out. This has to make Moscow feel increasingly nervous about its own regional influence.

The SCO, which itself states that it has global ambitions, really concentrates on looking west from China and south from Russia. That is why I was not surprised that though the group contains North Korea’s neighbors Russia and China and is ostensibly a security grouping, the Summit barely mentioned or discussed the Korean Peninsula’s strategic situation. The Summit’s Declaration placidly stated that the SCO would ‘stand up for resuming the process of negotiations on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. They call to show restraint and continue the search for mutually acceptable solutions on the basis of the previously reached agreements.’ A whole lot of feeble ‘blah, blah, blah’ as far as I’m concerned. The SCO as a group is concerned about keeping peace and stability in Central Asia and hopefully pushing the group’s influence further west into Afghanistan and that is why North Korea, Japan, etc. have not been high on the agenda.

Speaking of nukes and Central Asia, the SCO Heads of State promoted the Treaty on Establishing a Nuclear Free Zone in Central Asia, which was apparently put into effect March 2009. The region’s been free of nukes since Kazakhstan returned their Soviet controlled weapons in the 1990s. Of course the Stans are surrounded by nuclear powers (Pakistan, India, Russia, China) with Iran working their way into the club as we speak. Speaking of Tehran, the SCO state leaders had nothing specific to say regarding the country’s nuclear ambitions. The members did applaud US-Russian efforts to reduce and secure their nuclear weapons arsenals.

The Republic of Belarus and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka were welcomed into the SCO framework as Dialogue Members. They will get to attend meetings, but have no say into the organization’s decisions. Geographically this spreads SCO affiliated members closer to Europe and into the Indian Ocean.

Lastly, the SCO member states used the example of the joint counter-terrorism exercise of “Norak-Anti-Terror-2009” held last April in the Tajikistan to show their growing cohesiveness and capabilities in terms of regional security and cooperation. I’m not sure how large these ‘exercises’ were, but it is safe to say they were of smaller scale than both Peace Mission 2005 and 2007. One can be sure that SCO member state autocrats see these exercises as possible defense measures against domestic political and social revolts just as much against terrorist attacks, with the protests in Iran being way too close for comfort.

Tags: Central Asia, multipolar, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, terrorism

Before the Iranian election, I didn’t think much would come about, that is ‘change’.  Ayatollah Khameinei and his self appointed Guardian Council hand pick the candidates knowing that they will be the ones in charge no matter what.  If this is the case, than maybe Ahmadinejad or Mir-Hossein Mousavi may have different temperaments and rhetoric, but the policies they would follow, or be forced to follow, would pretty much be the same.  This feeling continued after Ahmadinejad was declared the winner and protests started to occur.  However, the ongoing protests and outward cries of injustice by Mousavi have started to erode this pliant feeling of mine that no change is on the horizon.  It is difficult to see a picture like this and not feel that things are different in Tehran.

These recent events are starting to make it look that the Ayatollahs may not have the power we thought they did.  Why is Mousavi able to speak out and rile up the populace?  Why would they pick someone who may even have a chance of causing these problems for their theocratic system and rule?  Ayatollah Khameinei’s statement that certain election results will be looked into contradicts his earlier declaration that Ahmadinejad won by a landslide.  Khameinei seems to be bowing to democratic political pressure to show that the election was legitimate.  This change of policy is a serious sign that Khameinei fears that these protests may get out of hand unless something is done, but by doing such a move he opens the regime up to further inquiry and questioning.  I mean Ahmadinejad reportedly won by nearly 20%, how could that possibly be mistaken?  Autocrats are always careful not to open the political/social door, for they know not what will be let in or let out, and it appears the Islamic Republic is starting to creak that door open right now.

That being said, I still feel pessimistically about how this will turn out.  It is true that though there are thousands upset with the election results, mainly in Tehran and other urban areas, there are also millions of other Iranian citizens who are either supportive or compliant to the election results.  As Robert Baer asserts, though the election was probably rigged, Ahmadinejad did likely garner the most votes.  In all likelihood, things will settle down and Ahmadinejad will remain president, though he will not have the political capital afforded most reelected leaders.

Regarding President Obama and his administration’s reaction so far, I would say they are putting forth their strongest strand of realist policy and thinking.  Though there has been statements of ‘concern’ the administration has made it clear that they are taking a ‘hands off’ approach to this conflict.  In other words, it is Iran’s election and the US favors no particular outcome.  Not only does this follow the realist line that sovereignty and respect for other state’s internal workings trump the spread of democracy, but one can argue that Obama just wants some one to negotiate with and it really doesn’t matter whether it be Ahmadinejad, Mousavi, Khameinei, or a Persian Thomas Jefferson.  In fact, one could argue that Ahmadinejad would be easier to negotiate with than Mousavi, as we know where Ahmadinejad stands on the nuclear situation, and though Mousavi in all likelihood would carry out the same policy, his ‘reform’ and ‘softer’ image would make it very difficult to get all on aboard when the situation becomes inevitably tense and serious moves (aka heavy sanctions or military action) may need to be taken.  It appears that Obama seeks a negotiating partner not a democratic spring in Iran, though of course I believe he would welcome such an occurrence, I just don’t think he’s A. expecting it, B. thinks it will make the future negotiating easier.  Remember, Obama went out of his way to acknowledge the Islamic Republic leadership in his television address to the country, becoming the first US administration to officially speak of or to the Regime.  By doing this, he is taking a gambit that by only dealing with the government in power can negotiations and rapprochement have a chance at succeeding.  The administration obviously did not think the Regime would be challenged during the upcoming election, but by Obama’s reserved reaction, it appears the administration is sticking with the game plan.

(Photo: New York Times)

Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Iran Protest, Iranian nuclear program, Khamenei

“Even before U.S. President Barack Obama utters a word of his long-anticipated June 4 address to “the Muslim world,” there is already a problem with the rhetoric. As well meaning as it sounds, the term “Muslim world” is a trap. There is no unified Muslim world.”

Scott Carpenter & Soner Cagaptay, Foreign Policy, June 2009

In a word, no. The so-called Muslim world numbers 1.4 billion in total with followers across multiple continents. Despite similar core beliefs, however, thought in Islamic corridors is anything but homogeneous. For starters, the divide between Sunni and Shi’a Islam is stark. In addition, the national interests of various Islamic-Majority (I-M) states differ greatly from one another.

If we assume a Muslim world exists, strong similarities of opinion would be evident across the 40 plus I-M states of North Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. This is not the case. Leaders in Morocco are not in step with their counterparts in Pakistan or Iran, which is logical given the various constituencies each needs to satisfy. The same could be said of their respective neighbors (note: most any combination of I-M states works).

If no unified Muslim world exists, who within the Muslim world was President Obama speaking to last week in Cairo? A few potential audiences spring to mind.

I) ‘Adversaries’ (Ahmadinejad, et al): It’s possible that President Obama’s address sought to undercut the rhetorical venom of our adversaries. The stature of Muslim leaders who espouse anti-American sentiment, such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are dampened when the U.S. presents itself as a benevolent alternative to extremism.

II) ‘Friends’ (Mubarak, et al): Perhaps Obama’s intent was to reassure prominent Muslim leaders who continue to expend political capital on our behalf. The political risk is acute for leaders, like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who frequently align themselves with the U.S. and our (sometimes) unpopular policies.

III) ‘Undecided Masses’: Most likely though, the President’s goal was to appeal to moderate Muslims still willing to listen. Perhaps, as has been suggested elsewhere, last week’s address was meant to move the disaffected, those with malleable hearts and minds. For example, those Muslims frustrated with the lack of progress towards a Palestinian State, but unwilling to fall in line with groups like Hezbollah.

In the end, the impact of the President Obama’s Cairo speech will be hard to gauge in the short-run. He’s currently enjoying an extended honeymoon, both at home and abroad. As always, U.S. actions will speak louder than our words, eloquent as they might be. I can think of at least 1.4 billion stakeholders interested in the Administration’s next moves.

Tags: Muslim world

Since Obama’s Cairo speech much has been written, but I would like to highlight three specific pieces that I feel provocatively tackle what the speech means to US foreign policy, more specifically, the way President Obama seeks to lead it, going forward.  All of these pieces to varying degrees discuss the importance of identity politics in Obama’s approach, very much seen in his Cairo speech.  I’m talking about Obama himself as an identity, Islam as an identity, and the US’s ‘changing identity’.  This in turn leads the authors to focus on how Obama believes that with a change in identity and approach, challenges facing the United States and international security (Iran, terrorism, Israel-Palestine, North Korea, Cuba, etc.) have a greater chance of being solved.  These writers open the door to what may become a serious facet of an Obama led foreign policy and they all come across concerned.  Here they are below, each with a short excerpt:

1. Robert Kagan’s Woodrow Wilson’s Heir -

Like Wilson’s, Obama’s foreign policy increasingly seems to rest on the assumption that nations will act on the basis of what they perceive to be the goodwill, good intentions or moral purity of other nations, in particular the United States. If other nations have refused to cooperate with us, it is because they perceive the United States as aggressive or evil. Obama’s job is to change that perception.

2. David J. Rothkopf’s On Equivalency: Introducing the President of Newton’s Third Law of Motion… -

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.

3. Christian Brose’s From One Cairo Speech to Another -

can’t help but feel frustrated that I’ve been watching Obama closely for more than two years now, and after an hour-long speech in Cairo today, I still don’t have a clear read of which way he’ll come down on the looming hard decisions for which there is no middle ground, try as he may to carve some out.

Tags: identity, international liberalism, liberalism, Obama, Obama Cairo Speech, Woodrow Wilson

First off, I want to acknowledge the sacrifice of all those who fought and died on France’s Normandy shores 65 years ago so I could sit on a comfy couch, in a beautiful city, and in a country where I can safely say and write whatever I want.  Thank you.  While I’m at I would like to thank those who are this very moment protecting our freedom and way of life in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, and beyond.

'I have a fruit basket, Is there someone named Islam here?'

Now let’s get to Obama’s Cairo speech.  I read the whole speech very early on Thursday morning and took copious notes (all of which I left at work) and my first impression was very positive.  The various topics covered and the audience were far from easy or simple, but President Obama did a serviceable job with a near impossible task, opening a more constructive, fair dialogue between Americans and many Muslims, specifically Arab Muslims.

Obama made quite the effort to show connection between Islam and the United States (sometimes too loosely) and praised Islamic culture and history throughout the speech.  Thankfully within this praise he was able to bring up faults (mainly violent extremism, lack of human rights, and opportunity) and highlight America’s history of progress and promise.  Referring to the latter, Obama had one of his best lines:

Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America but its promise exists for all who come to our shores.

This was an effective way to connect Obama’s personal life story (Obama in poll after poll is more popular abroad than the US as a country) to the country that helped him become who he is today.

Though there has been criticism that Obama did not use the word ‘terrorism’ in his speech, I thought he did a bang up job defining the enemy and stating that it was a problem that needs to be combatted head on by both the United States, Muslim states, Muslim people, and Islamic faith.  He forcefully stated that 9/11 was the work of Al Qaeda (in other words not one of the many 9/11 conspiracy theories that are sadly passed around the Middle East and beyond) and went on to unequivocally state that the US would do whatever was needed to defeat this threat.  However, he was a bit to politically correct and playing to his audience when he finished off this subject with this line, ‘Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace.’  I’m sorry, but the large majority of violent extremists in the world and those especially targeting the US are Islamic and base their reason for their acts on Islam.  So though Islam itself may not be the complete problem, interpretations and factions of it are.  To deny this would be not calling the enemy what it is.

Moving on.  I was disappointed by the near complete pass Iran’s nuclear program received during the speech.  Here was a sympathetic audience (at least the Arab state leaders) and Obama pretty much made clear that the issue was not a high priority for his administration, as the short Iran section seemed almost like filler and quickly turned to ‘ending the world of nukes’.  I think Obama may have been scared to be the seen as the American President giving demands or saying an Islamic state ‘can’t have nukes’.   This however, does not make good policy.  If you were Iran’s mullahs and you heard that part, you would think, ‘okay, we’re cool’.

I was also not a fan of the continual moral equivalencies (US women’s rights and Middle Eastern women’s rights really have nothing in common, and CIA assistance of the coup of Mosaddeq equals the Islamic Republics bad behavior for thirty ongoing years), but Max Boot discussed this better than I ever could.

Regarding Israel-Palestine, I was largely in agreement with Obama.  Israel does need to stop their settlements (though this is extremely complicated, much more than Obama lets on) and I thought Obama clearly laid out how Palestinian use of violence was unacceptable; ‘It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.’

On to Iraq, which was really short changed by Obama.  He mainly just talked about the US getting the hell out of there, but what about regional stability of the situation or about how the Iraqis were actually having REAL ELECTIONS to an audience that has never experienced such a thing.  I felt that they could have been a great seque into democracy promotion, but Obama faild to do so.  Many have died to make those elections come about and it would have been nice if the President of the United States at least acknowledged what was going on only a few hundred miles away.

That being said, Obama did finish up his speech with some nice words for universal human rights and democracy, but he did so without really using the D-word specifically.  Here’s his best line regarding what people yearn for:

…the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

It is interesting compare Obama’s democracy descriptions with former President Bush (”We know what works: Freedom works. We know what’s right: Freedom is right.”).  Different for sure, but really arguing the same point; democracy is da bomb.

I’m sure my notes had much more insight and hilarious jokes, but that’s all I got.  Overall, a nicely toned speech well-delivered.  The hard part of course is seeing real progress follow the words.

Tags: Bush, democracy, democracy promotion, Egypt, Islam, Islam and the West, Islamic extremism, Islamic world, Obama, Obama Cairo Speech

As could be expected, the media has been saturated with Obama’s speech tomorrow in Cairo, and for good reason.  Though I am skeptical how much rhetoric and popularity can have an impact on real foreign policy issues in the region and within the ‘Islamic World’ (Peace Process, Iraq, Iran’s nukes, Afghanistan, Islamic terrorism, embedded Arab dictatorships, etc.), I can’t help but think tomorrow will be an important day.  I just keep thinking about it, in fact, I’m a bit nervous.  Not sure why.  Maybe because it’s possible Obama will strike a cord that could actually begin a process where incipient or would be Jihadists decide that ‘America ain’t so bad’ and lay down their arms.  Unfortunately, as Osama’s video released today showcases, that is not likely to happen.

I think I’m also nervous because Obama, my president as an American citizen, may once again disparage his home country to score points with people abroad, some of whom have American blood on their hands.  When is Saudi King Abdullah going to New York to apologize for fomenting Islamic radicalism that helped lead to 9/11 or the Ayatollah Khamanei coming to voice his regrets over Iran’s taking of US hostages and for helping the Taliban and Shia extremists kill Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq?  This will not happen and I really wouldn’t want it to happen, as what good would it do?  I’m not saying that the United States has not done wrong, we have, but A. We’ve done a lot more right (65th anniversary of Normandy is in a couple days in case you need a reminder of one) B. The apologies don’t really get us anything or change the minds and policies of many people, especially those in power.  We must remember that problems facing the United States and the world go much deeper than an ‘unpopular’ America.  Christian Whiton states this well:

“The president is smart to use his own popularity to try to improve America’s image in the region. However, to prevail comprehensively over terrorists, we must realize the limits of this strategy. All too often, what is called public diplomacy or strategic communications is believed to consist entirely of decreasing anti-American opinions abroad. The theory goes that this will translate to more allies and reduce support for terrorists. It is a strategy that is based on hope and self-appreciation but fails to tackle the driving force of those who commit acts of terror: the Islamist ideology… [O]ur primary task is not to go out into the world and win a popularity contest. Rather, we must help bring about the decline of an ideology.”

Blah, Blah, Blah.  I hope, and predict, that Obama will make this point relatively mute by this time tomorrow. What do you hope to hear tomorrow?  If you were a Muslim Arab, Persian, Turk, etc., what would you want to hear?  I’ll leave you with some of the more interesting op-eds about the Cairo speech:

1. Obama pushes Middle East Thaw - well-rounded overview of speech and whole overseas trip by the WSJ.
2. Former Sec of State Madeleine Albright takes a stab at what Obama should say.
3. Fawaz A. Gerges tells Obama to speak to the young Muslims.
4. Michael Gerson of the Washington Post urges Obama not to forget about all the political prisoners and oppressed throughout Egypt and Arab world for they will be listening closely.
5. Thomas Freidman of the New York Times takes words Obama has already spoken to make a pretty good darn speech. (Someone tell Freidman to get a new headshot though, geesh!)
6. Nile Gardiner tells Obama to stop apologizing for America in the Daily Telegraph.

Oh yeah, here are two solid gold, GPP locks for the speech: 1. It will be centered around the Peace Process between Israel and Palestine 2. For the one millionth time a US president will walk the fine line between realism and liberalism.

Tags: Islam, Islamic extremism, Islamic world, Obama, Obama Cairo Speech, terrorism

When someone asks you ‘who you are?’, what do you think of first?  In other words, what defines who think you are?  I would first probably just say, ‘Pat’ or ‘a really cool guy who coulda made the Majors if he went for it’.  But hopefully your sense of identity goes deeper than that.  There is no doubt that most people would first identify with their family, friends, and likely the city/town where they grew up or currently habitat.  But what about on a higher level; nationality, region, or world.  How would you respond if someone asked you this question:

Do you consider yourself more a citizen of [country], more a citizen of the world, or
both equally?

World Public Opinion.org asked this question to 21,307 people in 21 nations between July 15 and November 4 and the results are semi-interesting.  Though the poll hit a diverse amount of countries with various types of governments, cultures, sizes, etc., one should not jump to conclusions that the polls result mean any type of global trend.  To no surprise, the United States was the most nationalistic of the Western countries polled, as 72 stated Country, 5 World, and 22 Both Equally.  French, Germans, and Italians all had higher rates of World Citizen or Both Equally, with the Germans still (59) being rather nationalistic.  As I would expect, several nations with either strong histories/cultures, young statehood, or featuring autocratic societies had very high rates of nationalism (Turkey, South Korea, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Russia).

There were some interesting and somewhat unexpected findings from poll, however.  The United States neighbor to south, Mexico, had one of the highest Both Equally replys, 35, compared to only 56 Country, with 9 stating World Citizen identity.  That means almost half of Mexicans polled thought of themselves as at least partially a world citizen first.  Secondly, the similar results of China and India were both surprising, but maybe they shouldn’t have been.  Both scored fairly low on the Country answer, 35 and 40 respectively, poll average on the World reply, 6 and 14 respectively, and each had very high Both results, 44 and 32.  This maybe should not have been so surprising as though each is a rising great power with nationalist sentiment being promoted, and for good reason, but they are also both extremely large and diverse countries (especially India), where there are other serious strands of identity challenging nationalism.  India has dozens of disparate regions with contrasting cultures and ways of life and of course China has Tibet and Xinjiang Provinces.  This poll question is too narrow to shine through why these peopled answered the way they did.  If you didn’t feel like you were Chinese, Mexican, Russian, etc. what else could you really answer besides Both or World?

What do you think of the poll, results?  How would you answer the question?  Me, I’m an American.

Tags: global citizen, identity, nationalism, polls