{"id":994,"date":"2011-05-19T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=994"},"modified":"2011-05-19T13:21:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T17:21:09","slug":"obamas-arab-spring-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama&#8217;s Arab Spring and MENA speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today, President Obama will deliver a major foreign policy address aimed not just at Americans but also at the Arab world (the Middle East and NOrth Africa, commonly abbreviated MENA). The themes are likely to touch upon the Arab Spring, the implications of Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, and American economic support of Arab democracy, particularly in the form of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/thetwo-way\/2011\/05\/19\/136443122\/in-mid-east-speech-obama-will-announce-aid-package-for-egypt-and-tunisia\">billions of dollars<\/a> of new aid and loan guarantees, especially for Egypt and Tunisia. I assume however that President Obama will not talk about Israel and Palestine, and will seek to draw a distinction\/justify the difference in American verbal support between the popular revolution in Bahrain versus other Arab states. These would be disappointing but not surprising stances for the pragmatic, neo-realpolitik policy that Obama has been espousing (and which was on display at the US &#8211; Islamic World Forum in DC a few weeks ago). <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll post the transcript and word cloud and my post-speech analysis afterwards.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE<\/strong> &#8211; the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/live\/president-obama-speaks-middle-east-and-north-africa-and-us-policy-region\">video is showing live here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE 2<\/strong> &#8211; here&#8217;s the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/transcript-and-word-cloud-of-obamas-moment-of-opportunity-mespeech.html\">transcript and word cloud<\/a> of the speech. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, President Obama will deliver a major foreign policy address aimed not just at Americans but also at the Arab world (the Middle East and NOrth Africa, commonly abbreviated MENA). The themes are likely to touch upon the Arab Spring, the implications of Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, and American economic support of Arab democracy, particularly&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[41,42,24,27,25,43,26],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nation-building","category-the-gash-of-civilizations","tag-arab-spring","tag-egypt","tag-islam","tag-muslim","tag-news","tag-obama-administration","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama&#039;s Arab Spring and MENA speech - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama&#039;s Arab Spring and MENA speech - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, President Obama will deliver a major foreign policy address aimed not just at Americans but also at the Arab world (the Middle East and NOrth Africa, commonly abbreviated MENA). The themes are likely to touch upon the Arab Spring, the implications of Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, and American economic support of Arab democracy, particularly&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-19T12:00:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-05-19T17:21:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama's Arab Spring and MENA speech - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama's Arab Spring and MENA speech - City of Brass","og_description":"Today, President Obama will deliver a major foreign policy address aimed not just at Americans but also at the Arab world (the Middle East and NOrth Africa, commonly abbreviated MENA). The themes are likely to touch upon the Arab Spring, the implications of Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, and American economic support of Arab democracy, particularly&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2011-05-19T12:00:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-05-19T17:21:09+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html","name":"Obama's Arab Spring and MENA speech - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-19T12:00:43+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-19T17:21:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/05\/obamas-arab-spring-speech.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama&#8217;s Arab Spring and MENA speech"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1005,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}