05 June 2009
This Week from Washington June 5
Podcast on Obama’s speech in Cairo, Clinton’s remarks on Western Hemisphere
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This week, President Obama seeks a new start between America and Muslims worldwide with a major speech in Cairo; and Secretary Clinton speaks on economic integration and progress in the Western Hemisphere.
Saying he came to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, President Obama told an audience in Cairo June 4 that the cycle of suspicion and discord that has defined the relationship for so long must end.
The widely anticipated speech, which was expected to be closely followed by the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, was held at Cairo University and co-hosted by Al-Azhar University. It was the second day of a five-day trip taking the president to the Middle East and Europe. He met with Saudi King Abdullah June 3 in Riyadh before traveling on to Cairo for meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
White House officials said this trip is an opportunity to continue the president’s outreach both in the Middle East and in Europe. It follows on visits to Washington on May 18 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on May 28 on how to resume the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Obama said that problems the United States and Muslims worldwide confront must be dealt with through partnership and progress, and must be shared. Sources of tension, the president said, must be addressed directly.
The themes Obama addressed in his far-ranging speech began with violent extremism, the threat it poses and what the United States has done in response; the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Iraq; the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; and the broader issues of democracy and human rights.
Obama said the United States will confront violent extremists who pose a threat to U.S. national security “because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women and children.” He said that the current situation in Afghanistan demonstrates U.S. goals and the need to work together to end the violence against innocent men, women and children.
The president also acknowledged that military power alone will not solve problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is why the United States is investing billions of dollars each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build hospitals, schools, roads and businesses, and help those who have been displaced by a militant insurgency.
A second source of tension the United States and Muslims must confront is the current stalemate between the Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world. Talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators stalled in 2008, and the Obama administration has been working to get them restarted.
The president said that, while no form of government should be imposed on any nation by another, he believes strongly in a system of government that gives voice to the people, and that respects the rule of law and the rights of all.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says that defining economic progress in the Western Hemisphere is more than profit margins and the rise and fall of a nation’s gross domestic product. Prosperity is measured in the quality of peoples’ lives and livelihoods.
Clinton spoke in San Salvador, El Salvador, on May 31 at the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative about the U.S. commitment to re-launch the economic initiative begun by the Bush administration at the United Nations in September 2008. The secretary also attended the 39th General Assembly of the Organization of American States, or OAS, on June 2 in Honduras.
Clinton said that the global financial crisis has reinforced how closely the economies of the U.S. and its neighbors throughout the Western Hemisphere are linked. Pathways to Prosperity, which was launched to help the Americas benefit from expanded trade, reaches across nations and free trade partners to regional organizations, development banks and other major trading nations in the Western Hemisphere. It began at a meeting of 12 nations in Panama in December 2008. At the time, the United States had bilateral free trade agreements with 10 nations in the region and was a signatory to the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement.
Clinton noted that nations participating in the Pathways initiative currently represent 34 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, and that the program can help spread the benefits of economic engagement and trade to women, rural farmers and small businesses, Afro-descendants, indigenous communities, and others who are often left on the sidelines of progress.
In Peru, Clinton said, the Micro and Small Enterprise Facilitation Program has helped more than 80 local governments implement new regulations for business creation, which has cut business registration time by 80 percent and reduced costs for business startup by more than half.
The next step for expanded opportunity will mean expanding beyond the current focus and current membership, Clinton said. The initiative should be open to working with new partners, including other nations and subregional banks that share the commitment to open markets and greater social inclusion.
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