President Obama delivers strong message to the Middle East

This was a difficult speech to give, but he had to do it. This is a prime example of a leader making decisions in the toughest of circumstances. He was firm, clear and direct but not demanding. He spoke with authority but he remained committed to including others in the process.

President Barack Obama sought Thursday to balance a sweeping, visionary American response to the Arab Spring with the chaotic specifics of a diverse region in the throes of complex change.

Obama, revising the vision he outlined in Cairo in 2009, firmly associated the United States with the forces of change in the Middle East and North Africa and inched the U.S. toward a clearer posture — if not a clearer plan — for peace between Israel and a Palestinian state.

Obama’s detailed address swerved between two poles:

A message that, the president said, “is simple: If you take the risks that reform entails, you will have the full support of the United States.”

And a regional reality that is anything but simple: “There will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region,” Obama said, in an unusually blunt acknowledgment.

The gap between interests and values was most visible in what was not said: Obama, who mentioned Israel 28 times and Egypt 13 times in his 45-minute speech, didn’t mention Saudi Arabia once. On the front lines of today’s turmoil, he said Bahrain’s regime has “a legitimate interest in the rule of law” but denounced “mass arrests and brute force.” He added, “You can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

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