Today President Obama will deliver his first major policy speech to the Muslim World since the beginning popular demonstrations and political revolutions began sweeping across the Middle East and Northern Africa. It’s not his first speech on the region. In June, 2009, the president addressed the region from Cairo University, speaking in broad terms in order to reset the relationship with the region following the Bush administration. Today’s Arab world demands a different kind of speech than the one delivered during the commander in chief’s first year in office. President Obama will be forced to address specific nations and outline concrete agendas. Zachary Lockman, Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and History at New York University analyzes the President’s earlier speech and looks ahead to his administration’s Middle East policy.
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