Andrew Exum makes an interesting point:
Does anyone else get the sense that Obama’s big speech in Cairo today is a bigger deal in the Western world than it is in the Arabic-speaking and Islamic worlds? The speech is only the #2 story on al-Jazeera right now, behind the clash between Palestinian security forces and Hamas in Qalqilya.
His commenters suggest that Arabs are tired of hearing speeches and have heard all this before. That’s likely true.
More importantly, though, Americans have an unfounded faith that everything is about us and that everybody would love us if only they knew us. To the extent we have problems with the rest of the world, it’s either because they don’t understand us or because our president isn’t being nice enough. That’s not how it works.
