The Big One

I don't think it's going too far to say that the biggest reason Obama was elected was to repair our situation with the Muslim nations of the world, both diplomatically and militarily.

If there was no other reason to vote for this brilliant yet reasonable man starting back in the primaries when the economy wasn't the issue, it was because as someone with half his ancestry in that world and a few years logged living in an Islamic country as a child, he was going to present a different face to the world than ever in American history. Ever since the oil barons of this world fully exercised their power for the first time with gas shortages in the mid-1970's, simultaneously as Israeli-Palestinian violence reached unheard of levels, as the U.S. installed Shah fled revolutionary Iran and the religious militants took U.S. hostages, we've had to grapple with the region disproportionately more than in our nation's past. And none of it has been successful thus far.

Now you fix those problems, multi-culti college man.

As I've often written, Obama's greatest asset is his strategic capacities. If rescuing the U.S. banking and credit system wasn't difficult enough, there's all the moving parts in the Middle East. So I'm looking forward to his speech tomorrow. Of all his big speeches thus far, this is the biggest. This one is about forging a new course in World History.

Word is the speech is very candid. Which is his strategy for his whole Administration:

“We have a joke around the White House,” the president said. “We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.”

I'll be concerned if it stops working.

So far from a Fox News branded apology tour, Obama is seeking to do the job we hired him to do:

CAIRO — President Obama arrived in Egypt on Thursday aiming to repair America’s relationship with the Muslim world through a speech at Cairo University, a carefully planned address that aides said would challenge Muslim perceptions about the United States.

He's had a good first news cycle over in that part of the world. If he's setting up partnerships within the region linked out to the Western world, then this will be the Islamic World equivalent of Nixon goes to China. The history train is taking a turn through what was once called The Orient.

Watch this space.