Monday, December 15, 2008

Cairo? Or Jakarta?

We speculated last week that Obama would probably give a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic nation's capitol within the first 100 days of his administration, we also speculated that the location of that speech would be Cairo, Egypt.
Michael Fullilove makes the case that the speech should take place in Indonesia, another very populous muslim nation and a place that Obama actually lived as a child.
He writes: "Choosing Indonesia would throw light on the diversity and richness of Islam, which is not, contrary to lingering perceptions, practiced solely by Arabs or only in the Middle East. The country, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, does a reasonable job of managing its considerable religious heterogeneity. Going there would help Mr. Obama to reframe the debate in the West about Islam and terrorism."
Although Obama and Bush have very different views on how to deal with the problem of global terror and Islamic extremists, hopefully he at least has similar reflexes

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