Obama's opportunity in Cairo

But Obama must be careful to say the right things in the right way, to avoid being too specific, and to pass over in silence certain taboo subjects. As the son of a Muslim father, and as an American who spent part of his childhood in the Muslim nation of Indonesia, Obama has unusual credibility when expressing respect for Islam. His life story gives him the authority to evoke the opportunities open to Muslims in America - and to commend the benefits of America's open society to other societies elsewhere.

In speaking about his foreign policy aims, Obama would do well to repeat some of the points he made in his inauguration address, during an April visit to Turkey, and in a Persian new year's greeting to the Iranian public. The gist of that message is that Washington no longer divides the world into nations that are either good or evil.

Obama can and should call attention to certain key initiatives his administration has already launched. He has earned the right to say his administration is serious about achieving a two-state peace agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama and his special Mideast envoy, former senator George Mitchell, are openly pushing Israel to freeze all settlement expansion, and the Palestinian Authority to enforce security and cease incitement against Israel.

Obama has an opportunity in Cairo to publicize his willingness to work with a Palestinian unity government that includes the Islamist movement Hamas as well as the secular nationalist Fatah party. Such a declaration might displease the Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak, which regards Hamas as a branch of the competing Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, but it would show a larger Muslim audience that America is ready to work with Islamist parties that come to power via the ballot box. Such parties usually moderate when faced with the responsibilities of governing.

It would make sense for Obama to describe his overtures to Syria and Iran as good-faith efforts to practice give-and-take diplomacy where his predecessor preferred unilateral demands and threats. But it is not Obama's place to speak of the deep divide between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims that underlies many of the most explosive conflicts in the Islamic world. America will have enough trouble reviving its reputation in that world without taking sides in a sectarian struggle that it has already exacerbated.