Obama Looking For Ideal Islamic Capitol For Major Foreign Policy Speech

Looking for the Ideal Spot to Make a Speech
New York Times
WASHINGTON
President-elect Barack Obama’s aides say he is considering making a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office.
So where should he do it? The list of Islamic world capitals is long, and includes the obvious —Riyadh, Kuwait City, Islamabad — and the not-so-obvious — Male (the Maldives), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
Some wise-guys have even suggested Dearborn, Mich., as a possibility.
Clearly it would be cheating for Mr. Obama to fly to Detroit, talk to Dearborn’s 30,000 Arab residents and call it a day. And Male and Ouagadougou, while certainly majority Muslim, can’t really be what Mr. Obama’s aides have in mind when they talk about locales for a high-profile speech that would seek to mend rifts between the United States and the broader Muslim world.
So Burkina Faso and the Maldives are out. But that leaves a whole swath of Islamic capitals, all ready to be spruced up for Mr. Obama to make his speech. I’ve thought hard about this, and asked a few people — diplomats even — which capital Mr. Obama should pick.
The consensus, after an entire day of reporting, is Cairo.

Why Cairo? It’s a matter of elimination. I called Ziad Asali, the president of the American Task Force on Palestine, to gauge his thoughts. “Damascus would be cool, except it would look as if he was rewarding the Syrians and it’s too soon for that,” Mr. Asali said.

True. Maybe in a year, if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gets around to a land-for-peace deal with Israel. But for right now, I’m not really seeing Damascus as the spot for the big speech.
What about Ramallah, I asked Mr. Asali, thinking it would show solidarity with the Palestinians.

“I would object to that on so many levels,” he shot back, irate. “Are you forgetting that Palestinians seek Jerusalem as their capital?”

Right. And giving the speech in Jerusalem would just open up a Pandora’s box full of problems. So that’s not happening.
My colleague, David Sanger, heard me talking about it and came over to my desk. “I think he’s going to pick Jakarta,” he said. “It would be a big homecoming-type trip.”
But Jakarta’s too easy. Mr. Asali thought so too: “Jakarta? People would yawn about that.” Sure, Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country — some 177 million Muslims live there — but the very fact that Mr. Obama once lived and went to school there would make choosing it seem like cheating.
Baghdad? Definitely out-of-the-box, but it could appear to validate the Iraq war, which Mr. Obama opposed. Beirut? Too many Hezbollah members — Secret Service would flip its collective lid — and anyway, the Lebanese president has always been a Christian.
Tehran? Too soon for that. Amman? Been there, done that. Islamabad? Too dangerous. Ankara? Too safe. Plus the Turks aren’t going to be too crazy about being used for outreach to the Muslim world when they’re trying to join the European Union.
I asked a senior Turkish diplomat what he thought. He immediately started acting, well, diplomatic. “We don’t have a problem with our Islamic identity,” he said. “But our system is secular.”
Riyadh? Mr. Obama’s national security aides say no.
Kuwait City? Abu Dhabi? Doha? “I don’t think it will be in the Gulf,” one foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama said.
See? It’s got to be Cairo. Egypt is perfect. It’s certainly Muslim enough, populous enough and relevant enough. It’s an American ally, but there are enough tensions in the relationship that the choice will feel bold. The country has plenty of democracy problems, so Mr. Obama can speak directly to the need for a better democratic model there. It has got the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that has been embraced by a wide spectrum of the Islamic world, including the disenfranchised and the disaffected.
The Secret Service won’t like it one bit, but Cairo is no Islamabad. I called the Egyptian Embassy in Washington to ask officials there what they thought. Someone from Mr. Obama’s team had already mentioned the possibility, although embassy officials said Egypt has not been approached about a possible presidential trip to Cairo.
Still, Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian ambassador, e-mailed me a statement. “Needless to say, the President of the United States is always welcome in Egypt,” it said. “Delivering such a speech from Cairo would no doubt reinforce the intended message. Cairo has long been a center of Islamic learning and scholarship, in line with Egypt’s central role in the Middle East.”

And check this out…………….

Egyptian Cleric Hassan Abu Al-Ashbal Calls on President-Elect Obama to Convert to Islam, Threatens: We Have People Who Are Eager For Death
Following are excerpts from an address delivered by Egyptian cleric Hassan Abu Al-Ashbal, which aired on Al-Nas TV on November 27, 2008.
MEMRI
VIDEO HERE
translation:

Hassan Abu Al-Ashbal: “Let me take this opportunity to address the leader of Europe, and the leader of America, who is the leader of the world, the recently elected Obama, who is the leader of the Byzantines – he is like the Byzantine leaders in the days of Prophet Muhammad.

“My message to him is threefold. First, I invite him to convert to Islam. This is the call of the Prophet and of Allah. Oh Obama – convert to Islam, and you will be saved. I hope that Allah will reward you twice: once for converting to Islam, and another reward for all those who will convert in your footsteps. If you want glory – you will find it in Islam. If you want honor – you will find it in Islam. In religions other than Islam there is utter humiliation, even if you are the president of the entire world.

[…]

“You, Obama, are among those who have pledged before Allah – Allah who created you, sustained you, and brought you to this position – to be a Muslim who believes that Allah is the one God, especially since you have some kind of roots in Islam. Convert to Islam, and you will be saved. All glory and honor lie in following Allah and His messenger Muhammad. Know that the true religion is the religion of Islam, and all other religions are fabricated religions, which are null and void – religions that were abrogated by the shari’a of Muhammad.

“If you refuse to return to your [Islamic] origins, to the way Allah created you, withdraw your huge armies and military bases from the lands of the Muslims. Know that all your predecessors have ended up in the garbage bin of history, and that America’s black and bleak history in the land of the Muslims and the Arabs constitutes an evil omen for you, your predecessors, and your successors.

“Know, Obama, that America, with all its size and might, will know no peace as long as a single Muslim child lacks food, drink, medicine, or housing.

“If you refuse, Obama, and insist on remaining in Muslim lands, know that Allah still plants in [Muslims] obedience to Him, and that they are willing to wait for Paradise, which is closer than their own shoelaces.

“Know, Obama, that in the lands of Islam, there are people who seek death, and are eager for it, even more than you and your people are eager for life – any kind of life, even a life of humiliation.”

Wild Thing’s comment……….
This is crazy! A policy speech should be given from here in America.
I wonder if he’ll exclaim “Allah akbar!” And then will he announce that Sharia law is completely compatible with the US Constitution and will be implemented immediately?
How about making the speech in front of his brother’s mud hut in Kenya, standing on a dead water buffalo carcass.
It’s gonna be a looooooooooong 4 years.