Blogs and Stories
How He Won Iraq
)
Iraqi Prime Minister Office / Getty Images
The real shock of Obama’s unannounced Iraq visit was the relatively warm response he got from many Iraqis. Reza Aslan on why there were no flying shoes.
President Barack Obama’s unannounced visit to Iraq, at the end of his first official trip abroad, did not really come as a surprise. After all, Baghdad is a two-hour flight from Istanbul (where Obama had spent the past two days wooing the Turks), a distance that underscores the strategic importance of Turkey in maintaining peace and stability in Iraq as U.S. troops begin to pull out of that country.
The real surprise is the relatively warm response Obama is receiving from many Iraqis. “No flying shoes this time for sure,” quipped one Iraqi political analyst.
Obama’s public admission that mere military force cannot defeat Islamic extremism is precisely what America’s allies—both in Europe and in the Muslim world—want to hear.
Perhaps Obama’s “popularity” among Iraqis (and I use that word loosely) has to do with his promise to bring that wretched war to a close. If so, he was reminded of how difficult his task will be the day before he arrived, when a string of coordinated explosions ripped through Baghdad, killing 37 people.
But I think there is more to the albeit slight shift in perception among Iraqis than simply the promise to end a war that has become the most potent symbol for what many in the Muslim world consider to be America’s “crusader” mentality. It may have something to do with what he said the day before, while addressing the Turkish parliament in Ankara.
“There are some who must be met with force,” Obama said. “But force alone cannot solve our problems, and it is no alternative to extremism.”
It may seem like a small matter but Obama’s public admission that mere military force cannot defeat Islamic extremism is precisely what America’s allies—both in Europe and in the Muslim world—want to hear from the new president. Indeed, it is precisely that recognition, which Obama pounded home again and again during his weeklong trip through Europe and the Middle East, that led France, Germany, Britain, and Turkey to support Obama’s new vision, not just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but for America’s place in the world and, more specifically, of America’s relationship with the Muslim world.
Obama appeared to do everything right on his first official overseas trip. He wowed the G-20 leaders in London, some of whom scrambled to get their picture taken with him as though he were a rock star (have you seen the stupid grin on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s face as he forced himself behind Obama during a group photo?). He and Michelle Obama seemingly upstaged the elegant Sarkozys in Paris. In Prague, Obama boldly put the world on notice that it should prepare for a future without nuclear weapons. But it was in Turkey that the meaning of Obama’s presidency, and the impact his leadership could conceivably have on the world, most fully came into focus.
In his address to a rapt Turkish parliament, Obama momentarily put aside the formalities of the occasion and, in what is becoming a signature oratory style, bluntly stated what everyone everywhere wanted to hear. “Let me say this as clearly as I can,” he intoned, finger wagging in the air, “the United States is not—and will never be—at war with Islam.”
To say that these simple words have been rippling through the Muslim world would be an understatement. Here in Turkey, it is practically all anyone talks about.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Stiffing the Revolutionaries
Reza Aslan, a contributor to the Daily Beast, is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of the bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War.
Naive Obama Gets Iran Results
Reza Aslan, a contributor to the Daily Beast, is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of the bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War.
Obama's Last Iran Option
Reza Aslan, a contributor to the Daily Beast, is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of the bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War.
As always, an excellent article by Mr Aslan. After 8 years of neo-fascism, America finally has an American in charge.
Thanks Reza. Interesting read and perspective, as usual.
Of Course Iraq loved him. Jesus didn't tell him to slaughter a hundred thousand civilians and smirk about it. The American Public likes him, Europe likes him, and Iraq likes him. Because showing respect is different from showing weakness.
What does that say that a country we nearly destroyed is now back to supporting America when we change tactics? What does it say that Republicans are angry about all of this international love that's going around?
Aslan is inconsistent. Here he writes "the simple fact remains that Obama is in a unique position to...seek a new "partnership with the Muslim world," simply because of who he is."
Yet in a piece last year in the Washington Post entitled "He Could Care Less About Obama's Story", Aslan writes that people in the Muslim world could "care less" about Obama's personal story and only care about a change in US policy toward Israel, among other things.
Which is it Reza?
People all over the world, who hated the US under Bush, are now finding that they like our new president and, by extension, us quite a lot. They may even return to the status of genuine friends and allies of the US. Some new nations may join that group.
There's an incredibly simple lesson in this, but unfortunately there's also an element of society that is so angry about it that they're determined to subvert our new president.
President Obama, on his first journey overseas, has represented America and her people in such a wonderful manner; I am so proud of President. Intelligent, personable, charming, and strong....What a wonderful change for us and the rest of the world.
The article is a statement of the obvious. Why wouldn't Iraq like the successor to Bush? In many ways, Obama is saying the same things Bush said but in a slicker way. Just like most Americans, there's hope that he will change things.
Two U.S. officials said security personnel prevented an assassination attempt on President Barack Obama in Turkey. A Syrian man was arrested last week, CNN reports.
As President Obama wraps up his visit to Turkey, news about a plot to assassinate the U.S. leader is coming to light. U.S. officials told CNN a Syrian man has been arrested after Turkish security services discovered he planned to assassinate Obama.
The man admitted he wanted to get close enough to Obama to stab him. He claims he had three accomplices to help with the plan.....
Now of course they are saying it wasn't a legitimate threat, as usual Obama claims both sides of the story.
It pleases me that the President, who was that "lone voice" again the invasion of Iraq, and loudly voiced his objection to the "Surge" - is now telling 1500 troops how proud he is that they have given the people of Iraq the tools to provide their freedom. Is that not an embrace of previous' administration's endgame (a democracy in Iraq)?
Bush's failure was more in his presentation and his lack of verbal skills to lead the nation. I know I'm in the minority, but I believe his intentions were true and was just a uber-crummy front man.
Obama is saying the same things, but with his super smooth oratory.You can infer it however it makes you feel.
apparently, as Reza's article points out, there is a pretty substantial difference between Bush making hollow statements that are utterly contradicted by his actions and someone else making them with at least the potential for sincerity.
sonofloud, I don't understand your point. There is always some nut jobs who wants to kill someone. Some of the greatest leaders in history were killed by such men, even when they were wildly popular with the majorities. So let's assume the guy did want to stab Obama. That's doesn't mean the general statements about his popularity are any less true.
I'm not even reading past the headline.
and yet you still post...
sonofloud
what does that even mean?
I honestly doubt people overseas, besides the extremist ignoramuses hate average American people.
No they hate you. Idiots who take their screen name from "The Jungle Book".
xbainx-
You forgot to take your pills again - calm down . I wouldn't want you to have a heart attack and miss the opportunity of expressing your highly literate exercises in response.
My experience with the people of Europe when I traveled there was that they thought that Americans were, in deed, loud and too often foul mouthed and ignorantly behaved BUT they loved the money that we spent there and thought that Uncle Sam was a "good touch" financially. They also thought that we were poorly educated because we thought that all of the world just needed to speak english as opposed to most Europeans from elementary school up are taught to speak several languages. We don't have the best image in the world but it doesn't help for the President of our country to 'bad mouth' us everywhere he goes. Money can't buy us lasting friends and some of the people in congress need to learn that.
Grundy I don't really pride my self on being literate in one paragraph comments on the internet. I like to make a point. And Pricklypear is a freak. You on the other hand just make boring long-winded points like 'Europeans are rude' when discussing an article about Iraq.
I don't like lies, and don't know why a bunch of crazed right wingers would come to this site to vent. The stuff I say is nothing compared to the hatred Meghan McCain gets. Do I come to Fox Nation and rant about Bush? No. Now that I have taken my pills, suck my dick. Literacy!
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.